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From: skank@iastate.edu (Skank George L)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: SPICE (Simulation Prog w/Emphasis on I.C's)
Keywords: Amiga, SPICE
Message-ID: <1990Nov24.072724.15373@news.iastate.edu>
Date: 24 Nov 90 07:27:24 GMT
References: <7848.274c0a04@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Lines: 42

In article <7848.274c0a04@uwovax.uwo.ca> 4224_5206@uwovax.uwo.ca writes:
>
>	A couple of weeks back someone was asking what to do for thier senior
>research project, well I have an idea.  Why not do a whiz bang implimentation
>of SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis).  The original
>FORTRAN (yea, I know, yuch) source code is available (for free?) from U of C 
>(Berkley).
>
>	My Idea is to have it implimented on the Amiga, making full use of the
>operating system and useOCr interface in addition to throwing in some nice
>bells and whistles.  The original program does not have circuit (screen
>oriented) editor or the ability to render graphs (I may be wrong), but most 
>of the grunt work has been done. The only thing missing is the user interface.

     Uh...  Hold on.  Have you seen IntuoSoft Spice (by IntuoSoft, duh).  I
really like what they did.  IntuoSoft Spice has a graphic preprocessor, you
build the circuit by selecting the components you want from a menu, and the
preprocessor writes a Spice version 2 compatible input file.  There are
several advantages to using a preprocessor, you don't have to mess with the
Spice source at all (not something to be doing unless you are a Numerical
Analylist AND an Electrical Engineer), the executable will be smaller
(something to think about on small systems), and you can STILL run the Spice
text file on any Spice version 2 system if you need more power.

>As it stands now, the program accepts text input in order to define the
>circuit and operating characteristics of the components, and create a file of
>numbers for a post processor to the actual screen or hardcopy rendering of the
>graphs.

     IntuoSoft Spice also includes a graphical postprocessor to plot Spice
version 2 output files.  The advantages of a graphical postprocessor are more
or less the same as the advantages of a preprocessor.  For instance, Spice
output from a mainframe can be plotted (not just Amiga Spice output).  (I
started on one myself but I didn't get very far...)

     The preprocessor and postprocessor could communicate between each other
with Arexx ports or you could extend the Spice instruction set by adding
additional cards using the Spice remark specifier '*' (again, like IntuoSoft
Spice), for instance *plot.  I've thought about this alot, maybe I should pick
the project up again...  I hope this doesn't sound like a huge add, I don't
work for IntuoSoft.
                                            --George