History of EDA (electronic design automation)?

[Bob Bradlee]

I think I still may have a copy of the Great Softwestern pcb layout addon for AutoCAD.

The first board I ever did on a computer was on AutoCAD Ver 1.x
I plotted it in ink at 2x to mylar and the pcb house worked from them.

Just my .02

Bob




On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 22:24:32 -0700, Richard wrote:

>We have the chips produced from earlier eras, but what attempts have
>been made to preserve the design tools from those earlier eras?

>Schematic Capture
>PCB Layout
>Netlist Tools
>IC transistor-level design
>IC gate-level design
>etc.

>I know several of you out there have microprocessor development
>environments from Intel and TI, IIRC.  Ditto for things like PROM
>programmers.

>What about the design software?  I imagine the first generation of EDA
>software was created in-house by pioneers of VLSI design.  But what
>about when the tools started to become commodities?  What about early
>releases of software from a company like Mentor Graphics?
>-- 
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