We are assuming that students will use remote desktop to login to the desk machines in the teaching lab. These machines have attached USB cameras for viewing the FPGA (lights, 7-seg, etc) and for viewing the VGA screen attached to the FPGA. There is an audio connection from the FPGA output to the sound-input on the desktop, so that zoom connections can hear the audio produced by the FPGA. Output from the FPGA is fairly well covered. Input in the form of toggle switches, pushbuttons, or other interactors, which exist on the FPGA, are supported by a Python GUI interface running on the desk machine and connected to the FPGA via a custom serial connection. This remote input interactor scheme was developed by Anthony Viego as a Masters of Engineering project in fall 2020. As implemented, the remote interface aso includes some outputs from the FPGA for easier viewing.
The board showing interactors and edge connector
The remote interactor interface
The interface has the full complement of displays and controls of the actual FPGA and implements an analog input, not on the original FPGA. The serial interface uses two pins of the i/o expansion connectorfor serial transmit/receive. A fully functioning project template is provided to ease integration of the IP with your projects.
Full documentation is here. This describes the process of connecting the modules, the Arduino serial interface, and other details which you need if you are setting up the system.
Copyright Cornell University Dec 10, 2020