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README
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1989-03-25
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144 lines
ABOUT THE PROGRAMS
------------------
This is a small printed circuit board cad package. It consists of three
programs: an autorouter, a board viewer, and a board printer. The following
comment appears in each of the main programs (pcbroute.c, pcbview.c, and
pcbprint.c):
** you may give this software to anyone, make as many copies as you like, and
** post it on public computer bulletin boards and file servers. you may not
** sell it or charge any fee for distribution (except for media and postage),
** remove this comment or the copyright notice from the code, or claim that
** you wrote this code or anything derived from it. you may modify the code as
** much as you want (please document clearly with comments, and maintain the
** coding style), but programs which are derived from this one are subject to
** the conditions stated here. i am providing this code so that people can
** learn from it, so if you distribute it, please include source code, not
** just executables. contact me to report bugs or suggest enhancements; i do
** not guarantee support, but i will make an effort in good faith to help you,
** and i want to act as a central clearing house for future versions. you
** should contact me before undertaking a significant development effort, to
** avoid reinventing the wheel. if you come up with an enhancement you
** consider particularly useful, i would appreciate being informed so that it
** can be incorporated in future versions. my address is: Randy Nevin,
** 1731 211th PL NE, Redmond, WA 98053. this code is available directly from
** the author; just send a floppy and a self-addressed floppy mailer with
** sufficient postage.
What I intend this to say is that you can do anything you want with these
programs with the following conditions: (1) you can't sell it or anything
derived from it for profit, and (2) you must give me credit. I do not use the
terms 'shareware', 'freeware', or 'public domain' to describe these programs,
since currently accepted definitions for them do not match my intentions.
These programs are absolutely free.
WHAT THEY DO
------------
The autorouter reads a circuit description, routes the traces, and outputs the
routed printed circuit board to a file. The board viewer can read this file
and display a picture of the 2-sided board on an EGA monitor. The board
printer can also read this file, and produces board image files of various
resolutions. The board image files can then be sent to a Hewlett-Packard
laserjet II laser printer to get hard copy.
I support the EGA and the HP laserjet II because they are what I have access
to. I expect the first comments I receive from users to involve support for
different display adapters (VGA, Hercules..) and printers (QMS, Postscript
printers..). If you have one of these and are ambitious enough to enhance the
programs to work with it, I hope you'll contact me so your work can be shared
with others.
COMPILING THE PROGRAMS
----------------------
A makefile is included which compiles and links the three programs. It is
written for the Microsoft C 4.0 compiler and Microsoft MASM 4.0 macro
assembler, but should be easily adaptable to whatever compiler/assembler you
have. (This is an example of an enhancement that others would like to share.)
The two rules:
.c.obj:
cl /G2s /Oat /W3 /Zp /c $*.c
.asm.obj:
masm /t /ml $*.asm;
describe compiling and assembling. /G2s allows the compiler to emit 286
instructions, and to omit stack-checking code; if you will be running on an
8088-based machine, you should use /Gs instead (omit the 2). /Oat is
optimization, and is optional. /W3 is a warning level, and is optional. /Zp
causes structures to be packed, and is optional (omitting it could cause the
programs to use more memory). /c keeps the compiler from initiating a link for
each module. /t causes MASM to use terse mode, and is optional. /ml causes
MASM to maintain the case of names (don't automatically uppercase them), and
is required.
RUNNING THE PROGRAMS
--------------------
All three programs require command line arguments, and if you forget what they
are, just execute the programs with no arguments. They will give a usage
clause describing what arguments are needed.
For pcbroute.exe there are two arguments: the input (circuit description)
filename, and the output (board description) filename. For pcbview.exe there
is one argument: the input (board description) filename. For pcbprint.exe
there is one required argument, the input (board description) filename, and
four optional arguments: /P indicates portrait mode (the circuit board is
printed right-side up), /L indicates landscape mode (the circuit board is
printed sideways), /Rn indicates laser printer resolution (n is 75, 100, 150,
or 300 dots per inch), and /Zm indicates the zoom factor (m is 0, 1, 2, or 3).
INPUT FORMAT
------------
The file called EXAMPLE is an example input file. It defines (a) the
dimensions of the circuit board, which are 29 rows and 37 columns (think of
this as a matrix of cells), (b) a chip type (the 7486, which has 4 XOR gates),
(c) holes where power and ground will be applied, (d) holes where the input
will be applied, (e) the hole where the output will appear, (f) four instances
of the 7486 chip, and (g) the pairs of pins that must be connected to complete
the circuit. For a complete description of the input format, read the large
block comment at the beginning of file IO.C.
THE FILES
---------
MAKEFILE -- describes how to compile, assemble, and link the programs
BITMAP1.H -- bitmaps for various cell types
BITMAP2.H -- more bitmaps
BITMAP3.H -- yet more bitmaps
CELL.H -- cell types and other global constants
ALLOC.C -- memory allocation routine
BITMAP.C -- bitmap data structure definitions
BOARD.C -- routines to initialize the board, and access cells
DIST.C -- distance calculation routine
IO.C -- input format processing routines
PCBPRINT.C -- main routine for board printer
PCBROUTE.C -- main routine for autorouter
PCBVIEW.C -- main routine for board viewer
QUEUE.C -- routines to manipulate the search queue
SOLVE.C -- main search routine (using the A* algorithm)
WORK.C -- routines to manipulate the work list
PCBPRINT.EXE -- compiled version of board printer
PCBROUTE.EXE -- compiled version of autorouter
PCBVIEW.EXE -- compiled version of board viewer
UTIL.ASM -- assembly language graphics helpers
ARTICLE -- text of magazine article submitted to Dr. Dobb's Journal.
when (if?) this is printed, it will be in the second half
of 1989, and some of the wording may be changed. Some
figures referred to in the article are not available, but
hopefully enough material is there to help you understand
what autorouting is and how it works.
ASTAR -- the A* search algorithm
BFS -- the Breadth-First search algorithm
EXAMPLE -- the example input file
TTL.INC -- include file which includes all of the TTL74*.INC files
TTL74*.INC -- ttl chip definition files. you may want to put all of them
in a subdirectory called TTL
README -- this file
THE AUTHOR
----------
Randy Nevin, 1731 211th pl ne, redmond, wa 98053