Quartus At Home
Written by Nathan Liesch of Imperium Accelero 9000
Working late into the night at school on your EE552 project will mean surviving on the contents of the vending machines of ETLC. Wouldn't it be great to work at home where you can have piping hot and fresh pizza delivered right to your door (I recommend Pizza 73 online ordering). If you are using the Nios development board your only option for programming the board is with Altera's Quartus software. Thus it only makes sense that if you want to ensure any code you write will compile onto your board you should do your VHDL development in Quartus.
Altera provides free of charge a "Web Edition" of Quartus that allows only certain types of devices to be programmed as well as certain other limitations. The Nios board is equipped with the APEX20KE device EP20K200EFC484-2X, but the closest you can use in the web edition of Quartus is EP20K160EFC484-2X. The major difference between these two devices is the you are limited to 160,000 gates versus 200,000 which likely won't be an issue unless you are pushing the limits of the chips. A more serious restriction is the lack of support for the Nios processor core. If your design includes this module then installing of home may not be of very much use.
If by now you have decided that having at Quartus at home is of use then follow the instructions below.
The standard download method is as follows:
Go to http://www.altera.com/products/software/pld/products/quartus2/sof-quarwebmain.html and click on "Download the Quartus II Web Edition Software."
Enter the registration information. Note that at this step none of your actual information is necessary, but if you do enter your real email address you may want to uncheck the Altera product announcements box.
Download the file and then follow the Installation Instructions.
Obtain a license file. Note that a real email address and your own computer's NIC number is necessary to receive the license file.
Alternatively you can download the installation file directly from the following address: quartusii_22_sp1_web_edition_single.exe and follow steps three and four.
Written by Nathan Liesch of Imperium Accelero 9000
With guidance from:
