wilkes@beatnix.UUCP (02/20/87)
In article <610@watcgl.UUCP> fdfishman@watcgl.UUCP (Flynn D. Fishman) writes: [ ... ] > I am looking for some schematic capture/simulation software for a friend. [ ... ] > I Have found one item of interest, see page 46 of the Jan. > '87 Byte, the Logicworks program for the Mac. Logicworks is available for the Amiga, sort of. If you look in older issues of _Amiga_World_ you will see ads by Capilano Computing, makers of Logicworks. I ordered this software about 10 months ago. A few months after I ordered, I received ``version 0.9'' at no cost. This is a preliminary version, lacking some very important features such as the ability to create device libraries, print your schematic, cut and paste type editing, etc. Capilano sent this out at no charge to all who had ordered as a show of good faith, claiming that they had run into some problems, but they were working on them. This preliminary version is great, though. It allows the user to enter a logic design as a schematic. It knows about the basic parts, such as flip-flops, muxes, AND gates, OR gates, etc. Also has some simple I/O in the form of probes, hex display, etc. Also, it will simulate the entered circuit, producing a timing display in the lower window. It uses the standard Intuition type of Amiga menu selection that we've all grown to love. I am a "soft-head" who has had to become more hardware literate (for my employer) in the past year, and I have found Logicworks to be very useful as an educational tool. Unfortunately, in its present form, lacking the ability to define more complex devices, it is not really useful for real design work. By last December, I had been using KS/WB 1.2 as my default boot-em-up on the Amiga, and I had discovered that Logicworks 0.9 did not work well under 1.2. Further, my hardware `wa' had grown, and I wanted the ability to create more complex circuits. I had heard absolute nothing from Capilano in the intervening six or seven months. They still had not charged my credit card for Logicworks, either. I wrote them a letter asking about a ``real'' version, with device libraries, printing ability, 1.2 support, etc. I also told them that I thought their program was fantastic. The bad news is the reply I received, quoted below: /* yes, this is a "Dear John" letter :-) */ #Begin quote mode. Dear John: Thanks for your letter regarding our LogicWorks package for the Amiga. We appreciate your encouragement and support, but unfortunately there haven't been enough others like you to make it economically feasible to continue development of the Amiga version. Just so we're not leaving people in the lurch, we will be releasing a version which works correctly under 1.2 within the next couple of weeks. We will notify you at that time and you can purchase that version for $99.95. Beyond that, we will not be doing any further development unless something dramatic happens in the Amiga Market to change our minds. Sincerely, Chris Dewhust #end quote mode. This is a sad commentary! Shades of Turbo-Pascal! I want to emphasize that this was not a completely vapor product. Capilano has been very honest with me, providing me with a pre-release version at no charge. I did not ask for this, they just sent it out to everybody who had ordered. Maybe a rush of interest in (and orders for) the Amiga version would change their minds. As for me, I won't be sending in my $99.95 for a crippled version of the program that happens to run on 1.2. I still have my 1.1 kickstart, and on those rare occasions that I want to run a crippled version of LogicWorks, I will boot my Amiga with 1.1. Sorry this is so long, but it's a subject I've wanted to bring up in this forum for a while now, and the question posed by Flynn seemed like a good opening. ==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-== John Wilkes --- UUCP: {sun|styx}!elxsi!wilkes USPS: ELXSI Ltd., 2334 Lundy Pl., San Jose, CA 95131 BELL: (408) 942-0900 "I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs." -H. L. Mencken