User guide

Altera Corporation 11
Getting Started EPXA1 Development Kit Getting Started User Guide
EPXA1 Development Board
The EPXA1 development board is a desktop development system. It
provides a hardware platform to begin developing embedded systems.
The development board provides a flexible and powerful environment for
debugging your own designs.
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For more details about the EPXA1 development board, refer to the
Excalibur EPXA1 Development Board Hardware Reference Manual.
Preparation
When you receive your EPXA1 development kit, unpack the box and
ensure that all the expected contents are present. At this point, you can
make all the connections to the board, turn it on, and ensure it is working
properly. The steps below explain how to do this in greater detail:
1. Take the following items out of the box:
– Power supply
– Appropriate power cord for your outlet type
– RS-232 null-modem serial cable
–EPXA1 development board
2. Connect one end of the RS-232 serial cable into the DB9 connector,
P2, on the EPXA1 board, and the other into an available serial port
on your PC.
3. Start up HyperTerminal and configure it for 38400 baud rate, 8 data
bits, 1 stop bit, no parity, and no flow-control.
4. Configure the ASCII setup of HyperTerminal by clicking File >
Properties > Settings > ASCII Setup. Turn on Send line ends with
line feeds and Echo typed characters locally.
5. Plug the barrel connector of the power supply into the receptacle on
the board
6. Plug one end of the power cord into the power supply and other to
the outlet.
7. The EPXA1 Board Diagnostics program should appear in the
HyperTerminal window, allowing you to carry out board diagnostic
tests that exercise and test the Ethernet, SDRAM, and UART
interfaces. Type h r to see a listing of the tests available to run. See
Figure 1 on page 12 for a screenshot of the Hyper Terminal window.