What am I holding in my hand?

I've said it before and I'll (doubtless) say it again – it's a funny old world when you come to think about it. When I was a student and didn't have any money, I had to pay through the nose for technical books. By comparison, now that I'm older, (hopefully) wiser, devastatingly handsome, a trendsetter / leader of fashion (where the latter usually involves me wearing the same clothes for years/decades until they come back into vogue), and can actually afford to purchase the occasional book, publishers often send the little scamps to me for free.

As a case in point, a new tome from Wiley & Sons just landed unexpectedly on my desk. A quick visit to Amazon.com reveals that this "hot-off-the-press" (published only last month as I pen these words) handsome hardback version of FPGA Prototyping Using Verilog Examples has a list price of $84.95. Eeeek alors!

Unfortunately, I'm up to my ears in alligators fighting fires as usual, so I've only found a little time to skim through this little rascal, but it actually looks jolly interesting. It's jam-packed with hands-on examples that can be synthesized, implemented, evaluated, and tested on a variety of Xilinx Spartan-3 prototyping boards.

The book doesn't try to teach the whole of Verilog as a language per se, but it does teach a very useful synthesizable subset as part of the worked examples. The book itself is divided into three main sections:

• Part 1 (six chapters) introduces elementary Verilog constructs and their hardware counterparts and demonstrates the construction of basic digital circuits using these constructs. It also describes the use of Xilinx ISE synthesis software and Mentor simulation software, including generating configuration files, downloading them into the Spartan-3 prototyping board, and running the board. 
   
• Part 2 (seven chapters) applies the techniques from Part 1 to design an array of peripheral modules for use with the prototyping board. Each chapter covers the development, implementation, and verification of an individual peripheral, and these modules can subsequently be incorporated into larger projects. 
   
• Part 3 (four chapters) introduces the PicoBlaze 8-bit soft core microprocessor and demonstrates its integration with the reader's custom circuits.

Now, the bottom line is that – if the truth be told – I'm never going to find the time to read this book myself, and I'm loath to leave it gathering dust on my bookshelves when someone else could be enjoying it and doing something useful with it, so...

... if you think you are deserving of this little scamp, send me an email sometime before I arrive at my desk in the pleasure dome (my office) at 8:00 a.m. American Central Time on Monday 28 July explaining why I should give it to you above all others (don't forget to include your name and shipping address). Make me laugh; make me cry; and I will immediately dispatch this book to the originator of whichever message touches and/or amuses me the most.

Questions? Comments? Feel free to email me – Clive "Max" Maxfield – at max@techbites.com). And, of course, if you haven't already done so, don't forget to Sign Up for our weekly Programmable Logic DesignLine Newsletter.