AbstractA pulse programmer (PP) designed to control a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer is reported on. The heart of the PP is a computer programmable logic device (CPDL) that provides flexibility to the design and, at the same time, reduces the number of electronics components needed and the dimensions of the printed circuit board. The PP works as follow: first, a pulse sequence defined by a set of instructions is loaded into the RAM memory of the PP. Then, when the process is started, the instructions are, one by one, read, decoded, and executed. Four types of instructions (functions) were defined: PRINT A, PRINT B, WAIT, and STOP. PRINT A and PRINT B change the status of the output channels A and B, respectively, WAIT generates a time delay, and STOP terminates the sequence. The output ports A and B have 14 channels each, and the shortest pulse and resolution are both 200 ns. The design of the PP is versatile, and new functions can be added through software without modifying the printed circuit board. To control the PP from a personal computer, a program named PulseJr was developed. It contains a graphical user interface (GUI) and pulse sequences can be drawn on the monitor screen with the mouse of the computer. Once the pulse sequence is sketched, clicking a button the program compiles the pulse sequence, generates the set of instructions, loads them into the RAM memory of the PP, and starts the pulse sequence. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Concepts Magn Reson Part A 30A: 127–131, 2007.