Converting Mesa controller card firmware source?

[petterreinholdtsen]

I am checking out how hard it would be to convert the firmware source for the Mesa Electronics FPGA source, downloadable using the hostmot2.zip download from http://freeby.mesanet.com/ .

Would you be interested in extending vhd2vl for this to work?

There are several keywords and types used that is currently not supported, like real, bit_vector, PinDescType and several syntax error issues when trying to use for f in *.vhd; do ../vhd2vl/src/vhd2vl $f; done to convert all the files.

I noticed you asked for example code. With this FPGA source, the entire source should be available.

The Mesa cards are typically used with https://linuxcnc.org/ machines to control motors, sensors and actuators. A earlier version of the source is available in the https://github.com/LinuxCNC/hostmot2-firmware git repository, but as explained in the README there, it became to much work to build the firmware using proprietary build tools. I am looking at vhd2vl to see if we can build the firmware using free software tools like yosys and friends instead.

[ldoolitt]

I love how you phrase your feature request! Bravo!

I support the goal. It will take some digging on my part to figure out what needed features are plausible to add to vhd2vl.
It may be that some are not, and that code base will need to meet vhd2vl in the middle.

Do you have a time frame in mind? I may be able to make a little progress, like that initial assessment, in the next month. I'll probably have more time available starting in November.

[petterreinholdtsen]

[Larry Doolittle]

It may be that some are not, and that code base will need to meet vhd2vl in the middle.

Note, so far I am just a LinuxCNC user interested in only using free software to run my machine. I can not promise the upstream code base can change upstream. I will get in touch with the Mesa firmware developers in the process, and hope they might be interested in helping out by modifying the code base when it make sense. In any case, we can modify it locally as a last resort. :)

Do you have a time frame in mind? I may be able to make a little progress, like that initial assessment, in the next month. I'll probably have more time available starting in November.

I have no time frame. I consider this a long shot and have no urgency as my CNC is currently working and this is to bring it even more in line with my urge to only use free software. :) I found your project via <URL: https://cadhut.com/2022/08/14/converting-vhdl-to-verilog/ >, and is also trying the ghdl approach, which seem like a worse option as all comments disappear.

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-- Happy hacking Petter Reinholdtsen

[petterreinholdtsen]

Did you find time to look at the Mesa source code so far?