RE: gEDA-user: Free GNU/Linux hardware design tools

["EATON,JOHN (HP-Vancouver,ex1)" <john_eaton@hp.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian E." Jørgensen [mailto:cej@os.dk]
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 11:48 AM
To: geda-user@seul.org
Subject: Re: gEDA-user: Free GNU/Linux hardware design tools


Charles Lepple wrote:

> The bottom line is that you're probably not going to find any GPL'd
> place-and-route software for modern FPGAs anytime soon. FPGA makers have
> very little incentive to just release all of the bitstream details of
> their products, and good P+R code doesn't just appear overnight.

Well, that figures. If only hardware makers would tend to making their
hardware and ONLY making their hardware... 

OTOH, I'm sure someone will have discovered the bitstream details by the
time I learn VHDL. :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a BIG difference between supporting questions about why a particular
netlist doesn't work and why a user generated bitstream doesn't work.
Releasing
the details would open up a support can of worms and give the competition a
lot of
info about how your chip works.

And if you happen to discover that a particular function that you thought
worked
really didn't then all you have to do is rev your backend tools so they
never
tickle that bug and your set.

John Eaton

BTW:  Does this board really have an audio cassette interface?