On 11/11/05, Neil Baylis wrote: > Can anyone recommend a good way to get started with CPLD design? Xilinx and Altera offer free software for synthesis. I would recommend learning a HDL like Verilog. Most tools also support VHDL, but in my experience Verilog is easier to work with as the syntax is more concise and more similar to C than VHDL. HDL's are very efficient at describing digital designs. I would stay away from schematics for digital design entry for several reasons: - I don't think they are as fast and efficient as HDL's - may be more difficult to simulate - less portable between different vendors tools. If you decide to use a HDL, you will probably want to find a simulator. I use Icarus with GTKWave as a waveform viewer for verilog. Xilinx offers a free version of Modelsim on their website that is limited in several ways (have not used it in awhile). You can learn quite a bit with a good simulator without even touching hardware. I also wrote a paper on "digital design basics": http://bec-systems.com/web/content/blogcategory/15/37/ Cliff -- ======================= Cliff Brake http://bec-systems.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist