Quote Originally Posted by Avatar View Post
This is actually the most interesting thing I've found in this article and thread, because I've tried to find out how to get, program, and effectively use an FPGA at hobbyist level with little success. Mind you, this was before the rise in popularity of the Arduino and Raspberry Pi's.

Do you have a guide or tut or something handy? Or is it not worth the effort, now that we have Arduino's?
There are some good free books on VHDL on the internets.

If you just want to control something (like your garage door) at home the Arduino is cheaper and easier. If you want to get serious about precision control of that something then go FPGA. I have a Altera kit at home that I have been playing on to switch leds but it is just so I can learn VHDL. I am going to use FPGA's in future so I need it for work. For home I would stick with arduino and C the FPGA is complicated and usually also a BGA package which just complicates things further - unnecesarry complications. Added to that possibly multiple powersupply voltages and offboard flash to boot the fpga at start up...