Re: [Xcircuit-dev] XSPICE output possible?

[R. T. E. <tim...@mu...>]

Dear Svenn,

> Tim, I would never expect that a simple complaint from me would make you 
> change from postscript to, say XML. For single-page documentation nothing 
> beats xcircuit in get-things-done speed.

I don't know XML, which would be the main impediment, though I have thought
about using Tcl as an output format;  to load, you just source the Tcl file,
so that part is already done.

> Biggest problem for me is to create symbols of black boxes with a couple of 
> hundred pins (mainly control busses and some analog signals) by extracting 
> the pin list from the spice netlist and convert to an xcircuit symbol which 
> can be netlisted properly. If you had an idea how to get that done with a bit 
> of tcl (or perl (ugh)) then I would be happy for a while.

XCircuit 3.6 also solves that problem, although you wouldn't notice just
by looking at the program.  I replaced the menu function "Netlist->Make
Matching Symbol" with a rather involved Tcl/Tk script that lets you arrange
the pins around the symbol, then draws the symbol and creates the standard
set of parameters and output format lines for SPICE.  I came up with that
after having to draw a symbol for a power distribution column running down
the middle of my chip, which had over 500 pins on it.  There's also now
a key macro "i" and "I".  If you have selected a label that contains a
number in the label string, those key macros will increment or decrement
the number, which makes it a lot easier to label buses or symbol pin numbers
in sequence.

					Regards,
					Tim

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