Re: gEDA-user: PCB suggestion

[Al Davis <ad62@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 06 January 2005 11:45 am, Stuart Brorson wrote:
> Since a new F/OSS PCB layout package is probably a long way
> off, we are left with PCB for the forseeable future.  Perhaps
> an easy project is to create a file translator which takes
> the Board Station database & converts it to PCB format.  This
> would be a first step, and would probably be pretty easy.

On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:23 pm, Al Davis wrote:
> What I would like to see is for us to use a VHDL variant.
>  VHDL defines "entity" and "architecture" blocks for
> synthesis and simulation.  To make extensions for layout and
> schematic, add new top level blocks to contain the extra
> information:

Considering both of these comments together ,,,,,

Use the extended VHDL as the standard.  Make the old tools work 
by translators.  Always translate to or from the standard.  
Some translations, like the one mentioned here, will take 2 
steps.  A wrapper can make it look like one.  With a very 
simple modification, extsting tools can automatically call the 
translators making it look like they have native support.

We really need such a standard.  It must be rich enough for ALL 
of our existing or forseeable tools.  ALL of our tools should 
support it, at least by external translators.