I'm looking for a good place to start learning about field-programmable gate arrays. FPGAs are basically big arrays of transistors that can be reconfigured on the fly to be many different components. At one moment, an FPGA could be a PWM module; at another, it could be a source driver for an array of LEDs. At another, it could be a serial port. This makes them potentially very useful for physical computing applications. However, the learning curve, from what I've seen, is pretty steep, mainly because all of the examples presume electronic knowledge that starts in electrical engineering rather than hobbyist circles.

Rich LeGrand of Charmed Labs, who make the Xport FPGA kit, assures me that it's easier to learn to program FPGAs than I think, and he's written a tutorial on how to do it. This is a good start, so much so that now I want to mess with these, but I think I still need a little more info. If anyone's dug into FPGAs and has other good sources, let me know.