Introduction

There is a lot of information in this document and it may appear daunting at first, but do not be discouraged. The strength of Diamond is the way it provides a powerful and efficient system by means of simplicity. The key to using it successfully is to keep things as simple as possible.

This help file accompanies the Lyrtech edition of Diamond and is designed for anyone who wants to program a Lyrtech system, whether writing a conventional sequential program or using the full support for multi-processor networks and concurrency.

The mechanics of building Diamond applications are described using both the Diamond IDE and more traditional command-line techniques. We recommend using the IDE as it does many housekeeping things for you and makes your job easier.

You can use Diamond to write applications for CPUs (including Digital Signal Processors and General-Purpose Processors) and FPGAs; the combinations of these that you can use will depend on the particular Diamond licence you have purchased. The standard licence for the Lyrtech edition of Diamond supports applications with any number of DSPs and up to two FPGAs.  Even if you don't have a licence for creating your own FPGA bitstreams, you can still make use of the default firmware that comes with the hardware. You may purchase upgrades through your distributor to increase the capabilities of your installations .

We are always keen to improve our products and make them as easy to use as possible, so we are happy to receive comments and suggestions about Diamond and this document. If you find the help difficult to understand, had to search long and hard to find information, could not find a topic at all, or have any other issues, please contact us.

Rather than working sequentially through the whole text, you might find it easier to go straight to Getting Started.