[Fpga-synth] Starting points?

[Byron G. Jacquot]

Howdy everyone,

Some of you may recognize my name from SDIY - I've been lurking for about a year, hoping to get my feet wet at some point.  That point seems to have come - I was just laid off.  Rather than scurrying to hunt for a new job, I'm going to learn some new skills - FPGA programming being near the top of the list.

A little bit about my background: I've been a firmware developer for 12 years, working very close to the hardware.  I'm good with C/C++/assembly, and can read schematics.  My last position involved writing device drivers and exercising a batch of FPGA peripherals...but the FPGA work was done by another engineer.  I'd like to be able to fill that gap myself.

I've got some questions about a starting point.

I know a while back the Spartan 3E was fairly popular.  Is that still the best bet for getting started?

What are the best books?  In C there's K&R, in C++ there's Stroutrup, in electronics there are Horowitz & Hill and Pease...what are the equivalent books for Verilog & VHDL?

What other good references are there?  Is there a good mailing list, newsgroup, website, etc?

Any other references, recommendations, etc?

Thank you,

Byron Jacquot