Was FORTRAN buggy 4335

On Wed, 20 Sep 06 12:38:02 GMT

Many years ago I first came across a piece of software running on the 1130 called ECAP - Electronic Circuit Analysis Program. This software could model with great accuracy simple electronic circuits, in principle it could have modeled much more complex ones but an 1130 didn't provide enough CPU for the job. Hardware designers have the benefit of programs descended from ECAP with over 40 years of refinement and enough CPU power to run them on really complex circuits.

The result is that hardware is usually well understood and known to work before it is built, surprises have become rare. The kind of uncertainties that plagued hardware design even as recently as the early 1980s and made it necessary to make hand wired prototypes and spend hours staring at scope traces and logic analyser screens, and then get prototype PCBs made and do it all over again are long gone from the hardware biz.

Worry not innovation is possible in hardware - and rampant - precisely because the try it and see cycle is orders of magnitude faster with simulators than it ever was with prototyping. The simulators are also a more accurate simulation of the production item than the hand wired prototypes ever were.

-- The computer obeys and wins. A better way to focus the sun You lose and Bill collects. licences available see