Chris Maryan wrote:

> If cost is a concern, you can ditch the boards all together and do the
> whole thing in simulation. Put Altera's free Quartus II web edition
> software on a PC and teach from that. The waveform simulation is quite
> good for instruction purposes.

Exactly. To learn vhdl, all I need is
1. A simulator to prove that my code is functional, and
2. Synthesis software to verify that my code
synthesizes, fits, and makes Fmax.
Flashing the LED on the board is just icing on the cake.

> For varying levels of abstraction, Quartus (and the Xilinx equivalent)
> allows you to 'code' in purely graphical terms, by drawing a schematic
> of gates, etc. This is very good for introducing basic logic. Then
> they can move up to VHDL or Verilog.

I agree.
Schematic entry provides motivation and
the a demo of code to RTL viewer seals the deal.

> One thing I would stress is to make sure that your students understand
> how synthesis from VHDL is done and good VHDL coding practices (i.e.
> writing hardware rather than trying to write software). I TA a course
> where the lab component is done in VHDL and I find the students do
> much better if explicitly instructed on how VHDL synthesizes, rather
> than just learning VHDL syntax and winging it.

This can be covered by insisting on
a synchronous process. The results
can be seen in the RTL viewer.

> This may seem obvious
> but our problem is finding time in the curriculum to do this on top of
> dealing with the real course content (processor architecture).

Why is always a candy machine or a processor?

-- Mike Treseler