Dummy's Guide to FPGA's?

And the Dummy's Guide?

Haven't seen anything - I just lept in and started by drawing schematics.

Altera's design software even lets you use 7474s and 7400s, and other TTL-equivalent "parts" when designing for their FPGAs.

If you study the help documents and sample designs, you'll find that some things are easier to do using AHDL or other "programming language" than with schematics - and you can mix schematics and AHDL in one design.

I wouldn't consider it a dummy's guide but "The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs" by Clive "Max" Maxfield is a good resource for both novice and veteran engineers.

You can use schematic entry with the Xilinx and Altera tools, if you wish.

Leon

graphically, in terms of gates, and not in terms of code?

If you get DesignDirect, made by Lattice, you grab a gate icon to the screen and your desiging your FGPA.

Some reading , if your close to a university, check out the bookstore. Here's some books ,

The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs : Devices, Tools and Flows , Author: Clive Maxfield

The Practical Xilinx Designer Lab Book by David Van Den Bout

Xilinx Student Edition (Version 1.3) by Xilinx Inc

Programmable Logic: PLDs and FPGAs by Richard C. Seals, G. F. Whapshott

VHDL Starter's Pack (Book and CD-ROM) by Sudhakar Yalamanchili

There is a nice 'cookbook' approach in this book:

but it rapidly progresses to the use of VHDL.

I've got an introduction to using CPLDs on my web site:

They are smaller then FPGAs and might be more suitable for your purposes.

Leon

Thanks to all!