How to get started with the Nexys A7 and Vivado as an FPGA noob?

[ChrisNonyminus]

So, I just got a Nexys A7-100T. This is my first FPGA. The first thing I want to do is try to port an fpga core of the NES to the Nexys, but I'm stumped on how to do it. I can load the rtl modules from fpganes into Vivado, but I'm not sure how to use them.

Help?

[Guest]

Hi Chris,

Congrats on getting the Arty. It's a fun little board!

FPGAs are fun and powerful devices, but they are also very complex, and so are the software tools to program them (nowadays: Vivado).

Porting a NES core doesn't sound like a feasible first project if you don't have previous experience, because you will both be overwhelmed by Vivado and by the problems you will encounter along the way. A good first project would be: getting an LED to blink, which is a few orders of magnitude less complicated. A good second project could be implementing serial communications from the Arty to a PC, and vice versa. You cannot skip those steps and jump right into a project that would be challenging even for an experienced HDL designer -- i.e., someone who knows which of Vivado's many buttons to push, and who has made a thousand possible mistakes, has learned how to recognize them, and how to go about solving them.

With a proper ramp-up, you'll be ready for that in due time but it would be amazing if you can reach that level in 6 months; one or two years is more realistic.

Edited November 26, 2022 by reddish

[dcnorris]

I recently got one of these, too, and have been having good luck working through Will Green's 'Hello Nexys' tutorials: https://projectf.io/tutorials/.

He uses the Nexys Video board, so some of the pin names have to be changed for the Nexys A7-T100. But that for me was a valuable part of the learning process.