totally aside from what i was talking about before, i have one FPGA-based dev kit, the altera nios II embedded eval kit (NEEK), cyclone III edition: http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-cyc3-embedded.html i bought it a while back when there was a possibility of some FPGA work, but it's pretty much languished in its bag. yes, that really is a touchscreen and everything. if someone out there was interested in playing with FPGA stuff, i'm willing to lend this out on an indefinite basis. so drop me a note if you think you have a legitimate need for this. in return, some basic docs on getting started with FPGA would be nice, but altera already has some excellent online courseware so i'm not too worried about that. i just figure someone might be using this rather than having it sit at the back of my closet. rday -- ======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday ========================================================================