Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: PCB vs. wirewrap--AMIGA PCB CAD
Message-ID: <8564@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 89 22:00:00 GMT
References: <65559@psuecl.bitnet>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 34

in article <65559@psuecl.bitnet>, peg@psuecl.bitnet says:

> Anyway, BoardMaster is an upgrade of the original PCLO that cost $1000
> or so, and it now costs about $80 mail order.  

Ah, so.  I'm glad to see it lives on.  I figured it must still be
around somewhere.

> As for autorouting:  the authors suggest using ARexx to implement it.
> I have no idea how practical a suggestion that is:  I haven't used
> ARexx.  I actually talked to someone at the publisher and it sounded
> like it HAD actually been done and did work.

With a good AREXX interface, it's certainly possible.  Basically, AREXX
does two things for you.  First of all, it's a powerful script language,
IMHO better than the CShell in UNIX, and far, far better than the 
standard "Execute"-driven Amiga scripts.  AREXX can open any Amiga library
and do pretty much anything else a normal programming language does.

The second thing AREXX does for you is it allows programmers to provide
a standard programming interface to their applications, which you can use
for building applications systems.  So it's perfectly reasonable to expect
that you could write an autorouting module that accesses the internal 
BoardMaster database via AREXX.  In fact, it's possible to write that
autorouter in AREXX itself, though it would be pretty slow -- AREXX is
interpreted.  Not that writing an autorouter would necessarily be trivial.
Though, once written, it would be usable for any PC board program with
a similar AREXX interface.

> Paul
-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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                    Too much of everything is just enough