A MIDI patch bay : first start

About a month ago, I talked about the development of a MIDI switch based on an FPGA. This system will include logic elements, as well as a processor to control everything. There are proprietary systems for developing software for embedded processors quite easily. As I decided to use independent solutions, I had to implement mechanisms to allow easy debugging. In particular, I installed an external ROM support on which I can insert a simple EPROM emulator :

This makes it much easier to load a new firmware version. It is no longer necessary to go through the heavy tools of the FPGA programming software. At system startup, the RESET procedure copies the contents of the external ROM inside the FPGA. Once this is done, the embedded processor may start and display its prompt message:

There you go, the system is finally ready to move on to the application development stage. There is still a lot of work to do before a real test of the system, but it's progressing well!