Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Learn FPGAs With a $25 Board and Open Source Tools

Posted by samzenpus on from the watch-and-learn dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Hackaday has a 3 part tutorial with videos of using open source tools with a cheap ($25) FPGA board. The board isn't very powerful, but this could be the 'gateway drug' to FPGAs for people who don't want to spend hundreds of dollars and install 100s of megabytes of software and license keys just to get their feet wet. The videos are particularly good--like watching them over their shoulder. As far as I know, this is the only totally open source FPGA toolchain out there.

2 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Re:truth is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Amused to hear that I'm not the only one. I bought a Spartan 3 kit six years ago dreaming of all the cool things I'm going to do with it... It was pulled out of the box once, and I programmed it once to blink LEDs. It's been in the box ever since. Having kids have something to do with that, I guess. Once they're out of the house, I'm sure I'll pull it out again.

  2. Re:truth is... by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1, Funny

    You only need a simulator. A deep understanding of combinatorial and sequential logic, an idea, and a plan.

    You know who else has a plan? The Cylons.