#bidi #uart is working on the #nandland #fpga. the next tutorial is #vga, but I'm gonna skip it for now. get back to basics and build some side-by-side old-skool #digital #circuit on the #breadboard vs fpga and see what my brain can latch onto.

(latch. that's a, I say that's a JOKE, son. I say, this boy's about three turnips short of a STEW.)

The #nandland #fpga tutorial series reached a milestone. "Why don't you stop the video right here and try this out?"

Hours later, frustrated and confused, unpause. Hello multiple techniques/constructs that were never introduced before! Hello construct that was *explicitly forbidden*! Hello test method that we were told was going to be in the next video, so don't do it now! And hello, #RestOfTheOwl instead of showing the scaffolding that got you here!

#fpga In the #nandland #goboard tutorial below, there is code like this:

always ... begin
b <= a
if (a == 0 && b == 1)
do something
end

How could this possibly work? always() is sequential, so shouldn't a and b always be equal after the assignment? (It does work, I just don't understand how.)

https://youtu.be/_7K-ty3Mffg?list=PLnAoag7Ew-vr1M98Q5K2kLHxFQ5l0DU3B&t=1138

@remi Welp, that didn't take long

Got to a project that seems like you'd want like...arrays and busses and stuff. But #icestudio has nothing like that

Looked up some verilog spex and there's a LOT that's missing

Googling found this super-helpful and simple open-source toolchain:

https://www.digikey.com/en/maker/projects/introduction-to-fpga-part-2-toolchain-setup/563a9518cd11466fb6a75cf3cb684d6d

I don't know if things have gotten easier in the last 10 years or if the proprietary world is garbage or if the #nandland #fpga guy is just a glutton for punishment, but this is way easier

I'm really impressed with the #opensource #icestudio #fpga programmer so far. And I usually *hate* #guis.

The workflow in the #nandland #goboard tutorials looks so extremely painful compared to this.

I'm definitely still bracing for "my" way to turn out harder/worse in the long run, tho.

The top row is basically a direct copy of the tutorial (still had to figure out how the gui does this, tho). The bottom row is me reverse engineering how to do this with #icestudio blocks.

#babyfpga

#icestudio has all the #nandland #goboard #fpga tutorial projects built into it, so I assume that means it is capable enough for this. That's great!

I feel like I'm learning #icestudio instead of #verilog or #vhdl, tho.

It's all open source, so probably the "raw" files it produces aren't going to be hidden from me. I'll just see if I can following a verilog tutorial to make an icestudio project...

I got a #nandland #goboard because it looked like a good way to learn #fpga. Nice simple tutorials, built-in peripherals, etc. And the guy says the dev env is one of the simplest.

#lattice #icecube2 is some of the *worst* software it's been my misfortune to install. Among other problems:

1. required me to make a symlink in /lib32 because it somehow couldn't honor LD_LIBRARY_PATH

2. needs me to change NIC name to "eth0" because license module can't find my MAC otherwise

#linux