Spartan7 FPGA Retro Computer board - Quick Start

This is a post for helping the customers who bought the Spartan7 Retro computer board to get started as quick and painless as possible.

The first thing to do is to download the Vivado tools from AMD (former Xilinx) and to install them on your computer - a Youtube Video will show you how to do it below

Then you need to download the constraints file which has all the pin locations of the board (please check this link from time to time - file might get updated or fixed from time to time)

The board is preloaded with a test configuration - factory test and should like in the video below. The preloaded configuration (in the SPI flash) is testing the VGA/DVI output (color bars) - the LEDS (by toggling SW1) and the USB1/2 for Gamepads by toggling SW2

Video Below with the test.

The board will come with the dip switches set in position SPI (self configuration) and will start immediately after power-up. (as 1 second immediately) - for normal operation in development the dip switched should be changed in position JTAG (small table on the silk screen describes the positions of the dip switches)

For refreshing the content of the SPI Flash please follow the procedure from the Video above, you can do this from Vivado using the JTAG interface

The boad can be purchased from our shop , the European buyers are hit with the Irish VAT (23% auch..) buyers from US and the rest of the world my be hit by local taxes when the boards arives in their country.

Typical shipping is 16-22 Euro and it takes 3-5 days depensing on location

Below is a project for the board that we are using in manufacturing to test the board (Vivado 24.2.1) it has code for USB/DVI/VGA/Leds/Switches