Lets Start out explanining  what is a fpga it is not the first programmable chip
I worked with simple PLD chips as far back as 1988 the 16L8 using Cupl on old Z80
boards

Now in 2004 after I had been at intel 9 years and had  unsurepassed experience on on
VLSI testing at the wafer Level I looked to move on from Test to do verification.