Licensing Scheme, Please Clarify or Eliminate it.

Hello,

The pages you are looking for do exist, or at least they do for the US.

Quartus II: http://www.altera.com/buy/software/buy-software.html

IP-NIOS for Nios II/f and Nios II/s: http://www.altera.com/devices/processor/nios2/ipsuite/ni2-ip-suite.html

Nios II/e is free as shown here: http://www.altera.com/devices/processor/nios2/cores/economy/ni2-economy-core.html

Megacore: Depends on the core but many are free as Dave indicated

The free Web Edition includes all Cyclone families except the first. This file shows what's included with each version: http://www.altera.com/literature/po/ss_quartussevswe.pdf

I would agree that the chips are awesome. They've come a long way since Cyclone II, increasing performance and density while driving down costs. It might be worth it to take a peek at the later Cyclone families.

Have fun!