3 ms·

For $99, it's a great introduction to the basics for people who don't have access to a bunch of white box equipment, like kids. The package looks well put toge

For $99, it's a great introduction to the basics for people who don't have access to a bunch of white box equipment, like kids. The package looks well put together.

p1esk 13y ago
For $99, you can buy a decent starter FPGA board, where you can really make a computer (and learn a whole lot in the process). I wish I had one when I was a kid.
- malandrew 13y ago
  Link to a good one for the curious? How do you get into FPGAs for the completely uninformed? I've yet to see any posts on HN for getting into them.
  - p1esk 13y ago
    http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,790&Prod=BASYS2 http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400... At the bottom of that page there is a couple of textbooks on digital design. One of them you can find as a free pdf. These books provide an easy to follow intro with examples, intended for this board. You can get into FPGA just like you get into any other hobby - start with something simple, then progress to something complex, one step at a time. For example, start with implementing an adder. By implementing I mean writing a description of the adder in a hardware description language. The description can be structural (describe the circuit which does the addition), or functional (describe the desired output of the circuit given specific inputs). Then you load that description into the board, and your circuit will created there from logic gates. This is not much different from regular programming (actually simpler, because you're much closer to hardware, so you can see better what your "program" is doing).
    - ingrownpsyche 13y ago
      An adder in functional Verilog: a + b Best go with structural if you want to actually learn something. This book ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Computing-Systems-Principles/dp/0262640686 http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Computing-Systems-Princip... ) is very good and I think still stands as the best introduction to this type of stuff I've seen. It's also presented in a straight forward enough way that it's good enough self-study for anyone with some programming experience.
      - p1esk 13y ago
        Here's a link to the course based on that book: http://www.nand2tetris.org/course.php http://www.nand2tetris.org/course.php Note, however, that it does not use actual hardware, nor a real hardware description language - it's just a hardware simulator (this might be important for someone who's interested in FPGA per se).
  - chrismonsanto 13y ago
    There are two main vendors: Xilinx and Altera. Don't bother going to their websites, they only sell the latest and greatest directly (this will easily cost over $1000). Instead, there are discount vendors that will sell older chips (generally 2-3 generations behind the curve) for cheap. The names to watch are Digilent for Xilinx and Terasic for Altera. I tend to prefer Xilinx stuff. I don't really have the time to write a more detailed reply, but you can browse around here [1]. Get something with lots of ports, or you won't be able to make anything interesting without a lot of pain (where interesting means "I want to hear/see/communicate-to another-computer my results"). The Zynq boards also come with an ARM processor that can talk to the FPGA fabric. [1]: http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Catalog.cfm?NavPath=2,400&Cat=10&FPGA http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Catalog.cfm?NavPath=2,40...

For $99, it's a great introduction to the basics for people who don't have access to a bunch of white box equipment, like kids. The package looks well put together.

p1esk 13y ago

For $99, you can buy a decent starter FPGA board, where you can really make a computer (and learn a whole lot in the process). I wish I had one when I was a kid.

malandrew 13y ago
Link to a good one for the curious? How do you get into FPGAs for the completely uninformed? I've yet to see any posts on HN for getting into them.
- p1esk 13y ago
  http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,790&Prod=BASYS2 http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400... At the bottom of that page there is a couple of textbooks on digital design. One of them you can find as a free pdf. These books provide an easy to follow intro with examples, intended for this board. You can get into FPGA just like you get into any other hobby - start with something simple, then progress to something complex, one step at a time. For example, start with implementing an adder. By implementing I mean writing a description of the adder in a hardware description language. The description can be structural (describe the circuit which does the addition), or functional (describe the desired output of the circuit given specific inputs). Then you load that description into the board, and your circuit will created there from logic gates. This is not much different from regular programming (actually simpler, because you're much closer to hardware, so you can see better what your "program" is doing).
  - ingrownpsyche 13y ago
    An adder in functional Verilog: a + b Best go with structural if you want to actually learn something. This book ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Computing-Systems-Principles/dp/0262640686 http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Computing-Systems-Princip... ) is very good and I think still stands as the best introduction to this type of stuff I've seen. It's also presented in a straight forward enough way that it's good enough self-study for anyone with some programming experience.
    - p1esk 13y ago
      Here's a link to the course based on that book: http://www.nand2tetris.org/course.php http://www.nand2tetris.org/course.php Note, however, that it does not use actual hardware, nor a real hardware description language - it's just a hardware simulator (this might be important for someone who's interested in FPGA per se).
- chrismonsanto 13y ago
  There are two main vendors: Xilinx and Altera. Don't bother going to their websites, they only sell the latest and greatest directly (this will easily cost over $1000). Instead, there are discount vendors that will sell older chips (generally 2-3 generations behind the curve) for cheap. The names to watch are Digilent for Xilinx and Terasic for Altera. I tend to prefer Xilinx stuff. I don't really have the time to write a more detailed reply, but you can browse around here [1]. Get something with lots of ports, or you won't be able to make anything interesting without a lot of pain (where interesting means "I want to hear/see/communicate-to another-computer my results"). The Zynq boards also come with an ARM processor that can talk to the FPGA fabric. [1]: http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Catalog.cfm?NavPath=2,400&Cat=10&FPGA http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Catalog.cfm?NavPath=2,40...