[TUHS] Circuit design tool mentioned in AT&T Unix promotion

Heinz Lycklama heinz at osta.com
Sat Feb 11 01:22:22 AEST 2023


Speaking about Datakit, some old timers may be interested
in this online memorial for Sandy Fraser and his achievements
being held in the UK on February 15:
https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/news/sandy-fraser-memorial-his-achievements

Heinz

On 2/10/2023 7:03 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
>
> I had to get off my mobile and to real network connection - here is 
> the URL: https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/Circuit_Design/
>>
> On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 8:20 AM Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
>
>     FYI: The sources to CDL are in the TUHS archives.
>
>     On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 7:56 AM Douglas McIlroy
>     <douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
>         CDL was for designing wired circuit boards, not integrated
>         circuits..
>         It was used to design the Datakit switch, the Belle chess
>         machine and
>         other hardware.
>
>         I suspect the cited IC-design tool was one that Steve Johnson
>         created
>         for use in a short course that Carver Mead taught at Bell
>         Labs. I am
>         not aware that it saw use outside of that course.
>
>         Doug
>
>         On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 12:37 AM Christian Dreier via TUHS
>         <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>         >
>         > Hello there,
>         >
>         > I recently watched an old Unix promotion video by AT&T on
>         YouTube (AT&T
>         > Archives: The UNIX Operating System:
>         https://youtu.be/tc4ROCJYbm0) and
>         > they mention a design tool for integrated circuits
>         (apparently named
>         > L-Gen or lgen; timestamped link:
>         https://youtu.be/tc4ROCJYbm0?t=1284).
>         >
>         > Part of this software is a language implemented with YACC
>         that appears
>         > to describe the behavior of digital logic, like modern hardware
>         > description languages, i.e. Verilog and VHDL.
>         >
>         > Does anyone have information about this, in particular:
>         > - Documentation
>         > - Which projects were realized with this?
>         > - Source code, if possible
>         >
>         > I asked this question on retrocomputing.stackexchange.com
>         <http://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com> (see
>         > https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/q/26301/26615) but
>         so far there
>         > is no satisfying answer. A "Circuit Design Language" (CDL)
>         is mentioned
>         > and there is some good information about it but it has
>         another syntax
>         > (as shown in the video vs. the documentation about CDL) and
>         apparently
>         > another purpose (description of board wiring vs. logic
>         behavior).
>         >
>         > Best regards,
>         > Christian
>
>     -- 
>     Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
>
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