[geeks] Circuit Simulation Software

[Dave McGuire]

On February 11, Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> >      Back in college, I used a program called "PowerView" to design and
> > test circuits using 74-series logic chips and PALs (among other things).
> > Are there any free (or cheap) Unix or Java programs around that do
> > pretty-much the same thing?  I don't need anything as big and powerful as
> > PowerView, but something that knows ABEL and the 74-series chips (or would
> > at least let me define them in a library) would be really cool, as I don't
> > want to lose the meager skills that I have.
> 
> gEDA (http://www.geda.seul.org/) looks interesting.  My design skills are only 
> slightly better than non existant though.  I used to use a nifty program on
> Macs back in the 6.x days.  I wish I could remeber the name of it.

  gEDA is wonderful; I've been practically LIVING in it for the past
week.  It doesn't [yet] do logic simulation, though.  Its schematic
capture capability is very, very good.  It can also interface with the
printed circuit design package "PCB".

  And the best thing about both of them...they run on real computers.
None of this Winblows bullshit.

> One of these days, I'm going to sit down and figure out the tool chain for
> using computers to design circuits.  I don't mind designing the circuits on
> paper, but I don't really have the time or patience anymore for wiring
> them up by hand.  I just wish that there were a way that I could print the
> wiring out on circuit boards, or come close to doing so.

  PCB can be found here:
  http://bach.ece.jhu.edu/~haceaton/pcb/

  Note that it is a PC board design tool (and a pretty advanced one at
that), but not an autorouter.

     -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL         "Less talk.  More synthohol." --Lt. Worf