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Electronics Forum / CAD / January 2005Early CAD Panning and Zooming?
Does anyone know which CAD programs were the first to offer panning and zooming? This may even be entering in different coordinates for a different view. It does not have to be "smooth panning." I found a great article on it here: http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&Subsection= Display&ARTICLE_ID=134265 I am wondering if Romulus in December 1983 was the first place you could do that. Thank you, Greg Hi Greg, Not sure if you include electronic CAD here but my old Orcad from the mid 80's could do that. The first CAD system I ever used was Futurenet Dash, I believe early 80's, and as far as I can remember it zoomed and panned as well. Otherwise we couldn't likely have designed large boards on IBM-XT standard CGA screens. Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com Joerg, I would certainly be interested in electronic CAD as well as mechanical/architectural. I have been reading about early CAD programs generally recently and I am fascinated by the early work. Do you have a link to something that might list the different versions of Futurenet Dash or perhaps even the capabilities of each version? Thank you, Greg Hello Greg, >Do you have a link to something that might list the different versions >of Futurenet Dash or perhaps even the capabilities of each version? > Unfortunately no and a Google entry came up rather dry for the older Dash versions. As far as I can remember it was sold to us by Data-IO. If you are doing a serious history search they might be able to dig something up. It was great software. It never crashed on me, not once. Well, neither did DOS. OrCAD SDT, also a pretty old editor, was rock solid as well. With anything after that I had crashes galore. After a few days of 'boiler room style' schematic entry on Dash the displays became hazy. Then we had to get some stuff from the janitor's room and clean the nicotine/tar layer off the monitors because these were the days when some of the engineers chain smoked when having to concentrate. I never figured out how they managed to smoke and edit at the same time... Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com The DOS orcad that I used, even the first version I had in '86 or thereabouts, did panning very nicely. Unfortunately the current windows version dosen't, as they've "improved" it. >The DOS orcad that I used, even the first version I had in '86 or >thereabouts, did panning very nicely. Unfortunately the current windows >version dosen't, as they've "improved" it. Yep. I was an OrCAD fan until they went with their own Windows "ESP" crap. Now. If OrCAD ever drops the ability to use PSpice Schematics as a front-end and tries to force Capture down my throat I'll be history and their most reputable bad-mouther ;-) ...Jim Thompson | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | | http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food. Hi Jim, >Now. If OrCAD ever drops the ability to use PSpice Schematics as a >front-end and tries to force Capture down my throat I'll be history >and their most reputable bad-mouther ;-) > So what is your normal tool sequence from PSpice Schematics through sending it all off to the chip layouter? I recently went Cadsoft/Eagle for schematics. It's really nice for RF/analog and has a powerful user language and scripting in case I have to do 'crazy stuff'. Cost is reasonable, too. Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com > Hi Jim, > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > http://www.analogconsultants.com Joerg ... One of the big big annoyances I had with Eagle was that the component-power-pins were not accessible. The proggers seemed to assume that all designers were locked in a 1970's timewarp and designed wholly using 5V rails. This meant ugly dismantling (invoking?) of every component. I packed it in because of this and their libraries abortion. You've given Eagle a thumbs up. I've respect for your opinion. does this mean this kind of thing is no longer a problem?. regards john In sci.electronics.cad, john jardine wrote: > Joerg ... One of the big big annoyances I had with Eagle was that the > component-power-pins were not accessible. The proggers seemed to assume that [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > regards > john EAGLE still has this problem... this is one thing I don't like on it. Otherwise, EAGLE is rather good. []s  SignatureChaos Master®, posting from Canoas, Brazil - 29.55° S / 51.11° W / GMT- 2h / 15m "He [Babya] is like the Energizer Bunny of hopeless newsgroup posting....or should that be Energizer bBunny" - "ceed" on alt.comp.freeware, 24/1/2005 (to some groups: Yes, I use Windows and MS Office. So what?) > Joerg ... One of the big big annoyances I had with Eagle was that the > component-power-pins were not accessible. The proggers seemed to assume that > all designers were locked in a 1970's timewarp and designed wholly using 5V > rails. Presumably you could just lie, and put your 3.3V or whatever rails in just as pins? Paul Burke Hello John, >Joerg ... One of the big big annoyances I had with Eagle was that the >component-power-pins were not accessible. The proggers seemed to assume that [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >mean this kind of thing is no longer a problem?. > I believe it still is but there were quite a few threads about this on the Eagle newsgroups along with some work-arounds. I don't remember how it went but Eagle has a pretty powerful user language programming capability, you can coax it into doing almost anything. Usually someone else already has and posted the respective ULP file. I haven't yet checked for that though because I design analog circuitry, mostly at the transistor level. Sometimes you may have to ignore a few ERC squawks regarding power pin names on different nets but I have experienced that in most CAD programs. My logic stuff typically goes onto the same rail, except for parts that I use in a more analog fashion and there you can create another part with separate supply pins. One example would be the CD4007UBE. Not nice but as long as it works, oh well. My biggest gripe with Eagle is the inability to create a hierarchical sheet structure. This is almost a must in a heavily regulated environment such as med electronics. So for now you have to create a top layer sheet that is structurally separate from the sublayer sheets. Several of us placed it on the wish list. After all, Christmas will be here again in another 11 months ;-) Library part generation also isn't quite as easy as with OrCad. I am sorely missing the non-graphical part generation. But after some pondering and considering the high cost of most other editors I decided to go for Eagle. If you need Spice fully integrated with your editor like Jim does, Eagle may not be the ticket. But for non-IC level designs, running Spice separately isn't a big deal. Sometimes I catch myself writing the Spice file on MS-Word. Oh, now I gave away my age.... Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com >Hi Jim, > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >So what is your normal tool sequence from PSpice Schematics through >sending it all off to the chip layouter? "Layouter" uses my schematics to do the layout, and I generate an LVS netlist (connect-up, but no strays) that the "Layouter" imports to compare to the netlist from the layout tool. I often use the "Layouter's" extracted netlist to re-run a simulation verification. >I recently went Cadsoft/Eagle for schematics. It's really nice for >RF/analog and has a powerful user language and scripting in case I have [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >http://www.analogconsultants.com ...Jim Thompson | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | | http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food. ESP is not needed. It was only a "convienient" front-end for the regular tools. I've always deleted the ESP crap. Mark I can say that Omation's SCHEMA III was incredibly fast for panning and zooming in the early 1980's, even on a 286 running DOS. Since screen resolution was shabby back then, it was vital to be able to pan across larger sheets. Nothing else in my expereince could match it until much more computer power became available. On the other hand, creating new components was always an interesting experience! Seems to me that Accel or Tango bought Omation and took this package off the market. I remember speaking to the sole remaining Omation support person a few times before the package faded away. B.T.W. I offer a service to convert Omation schematic files into other CAD formats, PDF's or hardcopy outputs. John Strupat JST Limited 77 Elmwood Avenue East London, ON CANADA N6C 1J4 Tel. 519-857-8504 FAX 519-857-8624 www.JSTtech.com for schematic capture on > Does anyone know which CAD programs were the first to offer panning and > zooming? This may even be entering in different coordinates for a > different view. It does not have to be "smooth panning." > > I found a great article on it here: http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&Subsect ion=Display&ARTICLE_ID=134265 > I am wondering if Romulus in December 1983 was the first place you > could do that. > > Thank you, > > Greg I did autorouting on a board once, while driving from LA to Vancouver BC, on a Toshiba 1000 laptop.. Took same computer out in a rowboat, and routed another board while floating exactly on the international border, about a mile off point roberts Wa. Autorouting on a slow 286... :) I used an ancient version of Racal-Redac in 1982 that was panning and zooming . Ran on an equally ancient IBM XT . best regards, Matt Tudor Greg wrote in message <1106700713.050175.181150@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>... >Does anyone know which CAD programs were the first to offer panning and >zooming? This may even be entering in different coordinates for a [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > >Greg > I used an ancient version of Racal-Redac in 1982 that was panning and > zooming . Ran on an equally ancient IBM XT . I got given a version of that free at a show in about 1987/8. Never did use it, though, sadly. The operation manual seemed to have been written by an army drill sergeant. Paul Burke All of this is very helpful. If any of you have an old manual or other documents, I would gladly compensate you for shipping and digging it out of the garage. Send me an email if you think you might have anything like that from before 1984. Thank you, Greg Hello Matt, >I used an ancient version of Racal-Redac in 1982 that was panning and >zooming . Ran on an equally ancient IBM XT . > Yes, I remember that one. But ours was a bit more ancient, it ran on a mainframe that filled a space the size of a corporate board room. Very rugged software, no crashes. As long as nobody bumped into the 'platter box', a hard disk the size of a Maytag washer. As someone mentioned before zooming and panning were absolutely necessary with these early programs simply because of the very limited resolution of the screen. My first laptop, afair, 'boasted' 200 pixels vertically. No backlight but many hours of battery life. I designed dense boards the size of a B size sheet on it. Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com |
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