This free eBook download via Apress Open may be of interest in the meantime ?

Pro Git

• Authors 

• Scott Chacon
• Ben Straub

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-1-4842-0076-6

Springer Link also have a free textbooks  'Covid 19 package' on the go at the moment:

https://link.springer.com/search?package=mat-covid19_textbooks&showAll=true

Amongst others, there are some books on Verilog and VHDL in there and on Python 3, which may be of interest to those doing the PYNQ workshop.

Peter Corke's book on Robotics and Machine Vision is in there  

Springer Link also have a free textbooks  'Covid 19 package' on the go at the moment:

https://link.springer.com/search?package=mat-covid19_textbooks&showAll=true

Amongst others, there are some books on Verilog and VHDL in there and on Python 3, which may be of interest to those doing the PYNQ workshop.

Peter Corke's book on Robotics and Machine Vision is in there  

Thank you Dave,

this is a very precious link, 543 pages! And there is also the epub version I can convert easily with Calibre to mobi for Kindle. LoL

Great link, thanks - but:

I downloaded the two free books on VHDL and Verilog, these were free so I'm not complaining but should issue a warning.

They  re fine if you can't afford anything better but are really the same, very old fashioned, book written with a very hardware logic orientated view and formatted up for two different HDLs.

I only did a quick scan but, for example, the Verilog book, although published in 2019 makes no proper mention of the different versions of Verilog or of the existence of System Verilog.

The book does not, as far as I could see, even state which version iot was written to support.

The VHDL book seems to share the same rather generic first section and uses the same examples throughout - this isn't necessarily a bad thing - it makes it easy to compare the two HDLs.

(except it doesn't use recent features of either).

The examples are simplistic, the discussion of state machines sticks rigidly to the 3 process model (I haven't written a 3 process FSM in the last 19 years !!) and doesn not even mention the existence of anything else.

These books will get you started but only on very simple stuff.

Like the man said, "There's no such thing as a free lunch".

These books could count as a free biscuit !

But thanks again for the link - I've download some about some stuff I know nothing about - which I would never have been able to affords to buy.

MK

.

Thanks for the review and heads-up.

Could you clarify which books you were looking at, as I found four titles:

• Quick start Guide to Verilog
• Quick start Guide to VHDL
• Introduction to Logic Circuits and Logic Design with Verilog
• Introduction to Logic Circuits and Logic Design with VHDL

by the same author and I suspect there will be a lot of duplicated content between them. Not sure if you were referring to all four or just two. (Actually I found six titles but two were the earlier 2017 editions of the same title.)

From what I've seen it is common for authors to re-write the same content but present one book in Verilog and one in VHDL. Not very helpful if you are starting out and you are unsure of whether to take the Verilog or VHDL routes. Some authors will do it within the same book with the same examples in both Verilog and VHDL which can be helpful to illustrate the differences but the book then tends to be twice the price.

I'm not surprised of the hardware logic oriented view as I suspect that a lot of readers trying to get started with FPGA design are coming from a hardware logic oriented education. (Have they started to include programmable logic devices as part of the digital electronics syllabus yet ?). However I have found this as being a bit of an issue now as the FPGA design tools appear to have started to drop the logic schematic based design tools in favour of coding straight in HDL.

I notice however that you don't suggest any alternative texts which would be a better option for starting out on.

The best I've found so far as an entry level text is:

Digital System Design with FPGA: Implementation Using Verilog and VHDL

https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/digital-system-design-fpga-implementation-using-verilog-vhdl-unsalan-tar/97…

but it is not a cheap option, and it expects you to have access to a copy of:

Programmable Microcontrollers: Applications on the MSP432 LaunchPad

https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/1259836193.html?exactIsbn=true

(which is equally not cheap) in order to accelerate some of the microcontroller based project designs covered there using the new-found FPGA skills.

The book also expects you to have access to not one but two different FPGA trainer boards, so quickly gets expensive to follow along, or you have to adjust the examples to work with what boards you have (not necessarily bad as it helps reinforce the learning.)

I've also found:

The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs

https://www.elsevier.com/books/the-design-warriors-guide-to-fpgas/maxfield/978-0-7506-7604-5

useful for some of the history of design leading up to FPGA but this is an old text and stops at around 2004.

As above, books are often tied to specific trainer boards (which can often be expensive). Some revised editions of books are still referring to trainer boards that are now no longer even available to purchase. The author appears to have just updated the text to account for recent software updates and re-published.

It was just the quick start guides I was referring too.

To be fair I've never found a truly good book on either VHDL or Verilog but my I do recommend:

VHDL-2008 Just the New Stuff, Peter J Ashenden

His earlier book "The designer's Guide to VHDL" is quite good too.

I learnt a lot of my VHDL stuff from good old internet news groups a long time ago when seriously good people, including from Xinlinx posted there.

And I started with a paid for week long course which was pretty good but far from cheap.

I've never found a book I'd recommend on Verilog, which may be related to my dislike for it, but I don't know which is cause and which effect.

I've only had a very quick look at the "Introduction to Logic Circuits...." pair but they seem to duplicate a lot of the material from the other two books

I followed your link to: Digital System Design with FPGA: Implementation Using Verilog and VHDL, but they seem to want money and it's out of stock.

MK