On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 04:12:12AM +0000, Michael Sokolov wrote: > * Being unhappy with the too-much-GUI-for-me EDA programs like gEDA, I > wrote my own non-GUI, non-WYSIWYG, totally Makefile-driven EDA system > (uEDA) to make this board and others in the future, and this board > project is naturally uEDA's first. GUI-indoctrinated "professional > hardware engineer" types may scream in horror at the thought of > non-GUI, non-WYSIWYG EDA, yet I've designed a board of this complexity > with it and it works!
Not necessarily - this is a change that the ASIC world went through many years ago. When I first started (mid 90s), we were using synthesis tools to generate sub-block netlists, but then the top-level integration was done using schematic capture. Nowadays, it's done by writing HDL (VHDL or Verilog) text netlists which connect them together. I could certainly see the attraction of text-based netlist generation for a heavily digital board, particularly one with lots of busses flying around. For the stuff I design at home, though, I think I'd stick to GUI-based schematic capture, as virtually all of my digital stuff goes inside a single EPLD/FPGA, and the schematic is all the analogue stuff (PSU, I/O signal conversion, etc.) However, I think you'd have a problem with non-GUI PCB layout. Whilst you could automate all of the routing and some of the placement, I'd really struggle without a GUI for placing the parts where their location matters (e.g. connectors, front panel stuff, etc.). I suspect that doing this textually would be a rather tedious and long-winded process. Again, there are parallels with the ASIC world, in that a GUI tool is usually used to create a floorplan for a block, which defines the layout perimeter, the locations of all I/O pins, and sometimes the placement of a small number of cells within the block, but the placement and routing of most of the cells is left entirely to the automatic tools. For professional PCB layout of complex boards, the PCB designer will usually place the connectors, switches, displays, etc. and some of the critical components, and then let the tool auto-place and then route the rest. -- David Smith Work Email: dave.sm...@st.com STMicroelectronics Home Email: david.sm...@ds-electronics.co.uk Bristol, England GPG Key: 0xF13192F2 _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user