I agree with him that the ~$25 Lattice Mach FPGA breakout boards are outstanding (but these days MachXO3 versions are available). They have an on-board FTDI FT2

I agree with him that the ~$25 Lattice Mach FPGA breakout boards are outstanding (but these days MachXO3 versions are available). They have an on-board FTDI FT2232 chip which provides JTAG programming of the FPGA, plus very key, an extra UART. With just one cable you power the FPGA, configure it and then talk to your design through the UART. They are the FPGA version of ST's Nucleo boards (which have built in "ST-LINK" for programming and debugging plus extra UART).