So, I got my Colorlight i9 (the ext board here) https://github.com/wuxx/Colorlight-FPGA-Projects#ext-board yesterday, this morning I'm trying to mess with it
It didn't come with any in-box instructions
I have some questions.

1. Trivial but: The power LED is much, *much* too bright, like painful to look at. I've stacked multiple antistatic bags on top of it to attenuate the brightness, does anyone have any specific suggestions for dealing with this?

2. The first thing I tried to do was program it with Amaranth. I was able to build_ecp5 the amaranth template-fpga project. This produced files:

    > build_top.bat  build_top.sh  top.bit  top.config  top.debug.v  top.il  top.json  top.lpf  top-openocd.cfg  top.rpt  top.svf  top.tim  top.ys

    When I plugged in the i9 ext board, Windows 10 identified it as a "DAPLink CMSIS-DAP" and mounted a drive. Google directed me to a terse page https://daplink.io/ and this guide https://github.com/ARMmbed/DAPLink/blob/main/docs/USERS-GUIDE.md which explains DAPLink will automatically program and reboot if you copy a file in "one of the supported formats" over. I copied over the .bit file, but there was no effect. Eventually I tried ejecting then unplug/replugging it; when it rebooted, the drive had been reverted to its original state (no FAIL.TXT). The secondary LED was not blinking as I would expect. (A second test, where I copied the .bit *and* the .svf, ended similarly.)

    How should I proceed?

    I believe 

3. The DAPLink doc explains that it provides a serial port "connected directly to the MCU" when USB is connected to a computer PC. As far as I know this board does not have an embedded CPU. Can I access this serial port from my ecp5/Amaranth code?

4. Would it happen to be the case I could load a RISCV (amaranth-soc? litex?) "linux where linux shouldn't be" onto this board and telnet to it via serial port? The "tips" page linked from the Colorlight-FPGA-Projects repo has some instructions on how to use the litex helper scripts to write to elements such as the SPI flash…  

5. The Colorlight-FPGA-Projects repo claims that this board has onboard Ethernet. How do I access it? I guess I need to plug in an additional part to one of the blocks of holes on the outside of the board?

6. At some point in the distant future when I know much more than I do now, it would be useful to be able to make use of the USB-C port to do USB-C things. To what extent can the DAPLink be bypassed and the USB directly commandeered by the ECP5 or otherwise by something I control?

7. The ARMmbed DAPLink instructions claim that the DAPLink has a bootloader mode which allows you to overwrite its "firmware". I assume this means whatever is running the USB-C and talking to Windows. Is customizing this firmware potentially useful? Is this potentially dangerous? On what chip, device, part etc does this "firmware" run? If I upload a bad "firmware" and screw up, can I brick the device (that is, is the "bootloader mode" intrinsic, or is it something that the part talking to USB-C is voluntarily entering on wakeup)? If I brick the DAPLink firmware, is recovery from that point possible (JTAG?)