From: Dave M. <mc...@ne...> - 2008-09-10 04:54:38
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On Sep 10, 2008, at 12:39 AM, Richard Erlacher wrote: > 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. Hangar queens...love that term. :-) I'm sure lots of high-end stuff was like that in the 80s. > 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. Centaur's VIA chips are done under Linux, and verified/tested with Perl and PostgreSQL. Analog Devices' chip design processes don't involve Windows at all. Both of these tidbits of info are directly from friends of mine who are chip designers at those companies. > 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. They did? The first Xilinx software that I saw in the wild ran under HP-UX. I'm fairly certain that there was no Windows support from them at that time. I have an acquaintance (friend of a friend) who is an exec at Xilinx; I will ask him. > 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. This could be (I say with respect) a case of "Windows blinders". People who run Windows tend to only ever find Windows software, because they tend to look for software in places for which one finds Windows software. From my perspective, as someone who has *never* run Windows in any sort of primary capacity, there's very little software out there for it for any serious applications. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL |