Evalbot As A JTAG Programmer

evalbot-as-jtag-programmer

[Adarsh] needed a JTAG programmer to push code to a CPLD dev board he was working with. He knew he didn’t have a dedicated programmer but figured he could come up with something. Pictured above is his hack to use a Stellaris Evalbot as a programmer.

Long time readers will remember the Evalbot coupon code debacle of 2010. The kits were being offered with a $125 discount as part of a conference. We were tipped off about the code not know its restrictions, and the rest is history. We figure there’s a number of readers who have one collecting dust (except for people like [Adam] that used it as a webserver). Here’s your chance to pull it out again and have some fun.

A bit of soldering to test points on the board is all it takes. The connections are made on the J4 footprint which is an unpopulated ICDI header. On the software side [Adarsh] used OpenOCD with stock configuration and board files (specifics in his writeup) to connect to the white CPLD board using JTAG.

12 thoughts on “Evalbot As A JTAG Programmer

  1. Proofread the post, please; wtf is “were tipped off about the code not know it’s restrictions”? You are looking for “were tipped off about the code not knowing its restrictions”.

    Try composing in Word and using the grammar checker builtin.

  2. I pulled a similar trick using UrJTAG and a Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins. Used it to reflash the firmware on my Butterfly Labs bitcoin mining equipment. Surprisingly easy to do once you get the hang of it…

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