Dave, Yes, the key word there is "BIG", and I bought some of 'em back in the'80's. They were mostly rubbish ... hangar queens that were down more than they were useable.
The software was released to be run under UNIX only so "they" (the vendors, who developed uner UNIX ) could easily apply patches, which they had to do at least twice a month, which process often took a week. That, of course, meant, 80% of the time, that the systems were "down" for maintenance or waiting for it. Every time they patched something, it seemed as though it "reached out and touched someone" which brought the system down. I was fortunate enough to get rid of the Unix boxes I had back then to a client who clearly wanted 'em worse than I. I phased all that stuff out the year that OrCAD for the PC (DOS) and PSpice became available, and haven't looked back. I still use the DOS version, as the Windows stuff stinks. I'm not sure you're right about the "large-chip" stuff. We seem to manage with the stuff from various vendors including Mentor and Cadence, though vendors charging 5-10% of what they charge seem to offer better products and service. Altera, Xilinx, and Lattice have all made their products available in LINUX versions, which is a good thing. They did, however, start out under Windows, since that's most of the market. I suspect their LINUX versions will ultimately supplant the Windows stuff, but not in the forseeable future. Quite frankly, I've encountered no software for design of digital or analog circuitry, aside from the foundry-specific stuff, that's not available for the PC running Windows. There could be some, I suppose, but I haven't been forced to deal with it. regards, Richard Erlacher ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave McGuire" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <sdcc-user@lists.sourceforge.net> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 7:39 PM Subject: Re: [Sdcc-user] documentation & open source generally > On Sep 9, 2008, at 5:53 PM, Richard Erlacher wrote: >> I'm primarily a hardware developer, though none of that can be of >> much use >> without firmware and software. The hardware tools for LINUX are >> improving >> steadily, but they've long been established under Windows, so most >> of us >> learned to use them there. > > Umm...Most of the "big" hardware tools started out in the UNIX > world. All the EDA software, FPGA design software, simulation > software, etc etc...all got their start in the UNIX world, and many > of them aren't even available for Windows, and aren't ever likely to > be. Those vendors are porting to Linux, but not to Windows, as is > not taken seriously for things like chip design or "large-scale" > electronic design. (that said, I find it surprising that Linux IS > being taken seriously in that world, but who am I to argue..) > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Sdcc-user mailing list Sdcc-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sdcc-user
