Hi all. This is my second post since I joined at the beginning of the year because I didn't think that I new or had tried enough to even ask a sensible question. So here goes...
I've just started out with programmable logic and there's a piece of the puzzle I'm missing. I've been investigating the different methods of controlling hardware. So far the only thing I've been able to do is program the parallel port using c. I bought an arduino microcontroller which I'm going to start playing with to get a glimpse into the world of microprocessors and am gonna start assembly language soon. Now the textbook I'm using at school (Floyd: Digital Systems) mentions PLDs (various types like FPGA), HDL and a "PLD development board", particularly one using Xilinx device with a picture but no name. Now I would have preferred learning this stuff first (downloading logic into an IC) before stepping into microprocessors and microcontrollers but the problem is everyone looks at me funny when I speak of "PLD development board". One guy at the electronics shop asked me if I was not referring to a PLC? I did some research and found that they use ladder logic but mentioned nothing about the "HDL" I'm looking for. The closest thing I could find to this was something called a PIC programmer which looked like it would do something similiar to what I wanted to do but am starting to thinking PIC is some sort of a microprocessor? Just to add some clarity on where this confusion started - We were given a set of 16 pin DIP ICs (PLDs) at school pre-programmed for us and were told that this was being used because the 74X logic family was deprecated in "hardware". So I thought to myself how did they put all these mixture of logic gates in one IC. After some investigation I learnt you could put any combinational circuit in a PLD and this sounded cool and I thought that If I learnt to reprogram it, It would be a nice skill to have. A fear I had was, however, what if there are many boards using many different types of PLDs and I could get a better one than the one we're using at school. Is there a popular one? BTW I've never seen the board they used. It's been eating me up ever since - I cannot get absolute clarity. I don't know which board I should get for this purpose. What I should say I need when I walk into the electronics shop that they would understand? Better yet what board would you guys recommend for starters or any general advice on this topic? For instance with all these different platforms for embedded systems where do I start?
I thank you for your patience if you've read this far... I've tried to post this in the most relevant place I could find...
I've just started out with programmable logic and there's a piece of the puzzle I'm missing. I've been investigating the different methods of controlling hardware. So far the only thing I've been able to do is program the parallel port using c. I bought an arduino microcontroller which I'm going to start playing with to get a glimpse into the world of microprocessors and am gonna start assembly language soon. Now the textbook I'm using at school (Floyd: Digital Systems) mentions PLDs (various types like FPGA), HDL and a "PLD development board", particularly one using Xilinx device with a picture but no name. Now I would have preferred learning this stuff first (downloading logic into an IC) before stepping into microprocessors and microcontrollers but the problem is everyone looks at me funny when I speak of "PLD development board". One guy at the electronics shop asked me if I was not referring to a PLC? I did some research and found that they use ladder logic but mentioned nothing about the "HDL" I'm looking for. The closest thing I could find to this was something called a PIC programmer which looked like it would do something similiar to what I wanted to do but am starting to thinking PIC is some sort of a microprocessor? Just to add some clarity on where this confusion started - We were given a set of 16 pin DIP ICs (PLDs) at school pre-programmed for us and were told that this was being used because the 74X logic family was deprecated in "hardware". So I thought to myself how did they put all these mixture of logic gates in one IC. After some investigation I learnt you could put any combinational circuit in a PLD and this sounded cool and I thought that If I learnt to reprogram it, It would be a nice skill to have. A fear I had was, however, what if there are many boards using many different types of PLDs and I could get a better one than the one we're using at school. Is there a popular one? BTW I've never seen the board they used. It's been eating me up ever since - I cannot get absolute clarity. I don't know which board I should get for this purpose. What I should say I need when I walk into the electronics shop that they would understand? Better yet what board would you guys recommend for starters or any general advice on this topic? For instance with all these different platforms for embedded systems where do I start?
I thank you for your patience if you've read this far... I've tried to post this in the most relevant place I could find...