Luckily, AWC has the answer to these problems. We're working hard to bring you better hardware prototyping tools at a low cost. Finally, you can get great design software free from the Altera Web site.

This tutorial will take you through a simple design with the Altera MAX II PLUS software and a Post-It board. Of course, you could use any Altera development board.

For a simple example, I'll show you how to construct this half-adder design.

This simple circuit takes two bits, B0 and B1, and adds them producing a SUM and a CARRY output.

Before you start, you need to install the Altera MAX II Plus software on your PC. Since it can simulate your design, you don't need a Post-It board to see the results, although if you want to implement the actual hardware, you will need some kind of board with a MAX3000 on it.