[sci.electronics] Any CHEAP Logic Simulators for the PC available??

morris@dms.UUCP (Jim Morris) (04/04/89)

Does anyone know if there are any cheap ( < $200) Logic Circuit
Simulators that run on the IBM-PC, or clones?

I realise for this price it will not be a perfect simulation, but something
to play with would be nice.
-- 
Jim Morris.         {motcsd|weitek}!dms!morris or morris@dms.UUCP 
           Atari Games Corporation, Sycamore Drive, Milpitas CA 95035.
       (Arcade Video Game Manufacturer, NOT Atari Corp. ST manufacturer).
Any opinions expressed are probably my own, and not those of Atari Games Corp.

mikes@mntgfx.mentor.com (Mike Stanbro) (04/06/89)

From article <756@dms.UUCP>, by morris@dms.UUCP (Jim Morris):
> 
> Does anyone know if there are any cheap ( < $200) Logic Circuit
> Simulators that run on the IBM-PC, or clones?
> 
> I realise for this price it will not be a perfect simulation, but something
> to play with would be nice.
> -- 
> Jim Morris.         {motcsd|weitek}!dms!morris or morris@dms.UUCP 
>            Atari Games Corporation, Sycamore Drive, Milpitas CA 95035.
>        (Arcade Video Game Manufacturer, NOT Atari Corp. ST manufacturer).
> Any opinions expressed are probably my own, and not those of Atari Games Corp.


The cheapest logic simulator that I know of for the PC is sold by OrCad.  It
is about $400-500 (if my memory serves me correctly).  From what I have heard, 
it is well worth the money.  Few simulators have been developed for the PC 
environment primarily because of the limited address space under PC-DOS.  Logic 
simulations require lots of memory!  With the advent of expanded memory in the PC, 
simulations are now possible but somewhat slow due to the nature of expanded 
memory's bank switching techniques and small 64Kbyte window.

If you ever get serious about logic simulation, you should consider one of the 
"big boy" packages that run on an engineering workstation with lots of physical 
memory.  I run a 68030 machine with 8M of physical memory and run into virtual 
memory paging when simulating board-level designs or big gate arrays.  

Beware of spending _any_ amount of money on a cheapy simulator; most are just
toys and not worth the investment of your time or money.

If you are interested, OrCad can be reached at (503) 640-5007 (Hillsboro, OR).




-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Stanbro,  Advanced Development,  Mentor Graphics Corporation
8500 SW Creekside Place,   Beaverton OR   97005,   (503) 626-1437
...!{sequent,tessi,apollo}!mntgfx!mikes  OR  mikes@pdx.MENTOR.COM