>> Anyone got some links or names of manufactures which have free
>> development environments??  I was under the impression I would be up
>> for some really expensive 3rd party software.
>
>Xilinx has its ISE 6.3 free webpack (200MB download, or inexpensive CD)
>Altera has Quartus II, free for download
>Atmel has IDS, integrated dev system (I think), also free for download
>Lattice semi: I have no idea. their FPGA families are weird.
>Actel: Their software seems more modular than xilinx, but it looks
>free (not sure though)
>
>Those are the ones I know about, possibly also the biggest and easiest
>to find.

On top of that, remember that many PSpice packages have means of simulating
the internals of FPGA's, and may also provide the necessary files to program
them. I believe OrCad does things like this but haven't got as far as
investigating it yet (a "one day" project), or else they have the FPGA
software as an inherent part of the package hooked back into the PSpice
part. OK, this is not free, but if you already happen to have a PSpice
package, investigate it, you might find you already have the tools.

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