Re: gEDA-user: purpose of gschem

[Ouabache Designworks <z3qmtr45@xxxxxxxxx>]

       I am not new (though a tad rusty) to spice, or the usual design
       process. Years ago, I went through an analog circuit design,
     followed
       by a VLSI design class that involved the use of H-Spice, Mentor
       Graphics and Cadence software, basically Design Architect,
     (Modelsim
       for digital design), Accusim, IC Station, DRC, LVS workflow, with
     the
       (IIRC) AMI05 library.

       I guess I am asking - what purpose does gschem serve (other than
     to
       create pretty pictures, and being a humongous waste of time
     otherwise
       since its basically asking you to enter the entire spice script,
     albeit
       in disparate pretty boxes) ?
     ------------------------------

   The purpose of gschem is to provide X% of the functionality of the
   above mentioned
   tools at Y% of their cost where:
                            X/Y  = Some really big Number
   It is labor of love performed by designers who are fed up paying big
   $$$ for buggy eda tools.
   Those who want to take a turn being a tool maker instead of a tool
   user. Those who don't want
   to be dependent on an employer's licenses for their professional
   livelihood. Those who have
   spent time solving problems and want to help others with the same
   issues.
   Gschem is better called GAF ( gschem and friends) which is a open
   sourced tool set of
   various eda tools.
   Gschem itself is in pretty good shape. It's comparable to programs that
   I used that cost $3000.
   PCB is in good shape. I haven't used it for any boards but there is a
   lot of activity on these forums
   and a lot of people are using a gschem->PCB flow
   Beyond that it's kind of spotty. The gschem -> spice flow is not
   polished and is more of an aide that
   is better than doing it all in text files while also providing usable
   documents.
   It's waiting for someone willing to come up with a solution and share
   it. You would need to create a
   library with all the basic spice components and attributes. Create any
   support tools or scripts that
   can do the gunt work and make the design flow easy and robust and then
   give it away for free.
   Around here people don't say "Why doesn't somebody.." they say "Why
   can't I"
   John Eaton


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