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[John Lazzaro]

  ******* PLEASE DO NOT DISTRIBUTE TO OTHER MAILING LISTS *******


	          Caltech VLSI CAD Tool Distribution		
  		  ----------------------------------


We are offering to the "connectionists" mailing list hardware
implementation community a pre-release version of the Caltech
electronic CAD distribution. This distribution contains tools for
schematic capture, netlist creation, and analog and digital simulation
(log), IC mask layout, extraction, and DRC (wol), simple chip
compilation (wolcomp), MOSIS fabrication request generation (mosis),
netlist comparison (netcmp), data plotting (view) and postscript
graphics editing (until). These tools were used exclusively for the
design and test of all the integrated circuits described in Carver
Mead's book "Analog VLSI and Neural Systems".  Until was used as the
primary tool for figure creation for the book.  The distribution also
contains an example of an analog VLSI chip that was designed and
fabricated with these tools, and an example of an Actel
field-programmable gate array design that was simulated and converted
to Actel format with these tools.

These tools are distributed under a license very similar to the GNU
license; the minor changes protect Caltech from liability.

To use these tools, you need:

1) A unix workstation that runs X11r3, X11r4, or Openwindows
2) A color screen
3) Gcc or other ANSI-standard compiler

Right now only Sun Sparcstations are officially supported, although
resourceful users have the tools running on Sun 3, HP Series 300, and
Decstations.  If don't have a Sparcstation or an HP 300, only take the
package if you feel confident in your C/Unix abilities to do the
porting required; someday soon we will integrate the changes back into
the sources officially, although many "ifdef mips" are already in the
code.

If you are interested in some or all of these tools, 

1) ftp to hobiecat.cs.caltech.edu on the Internet,
2) log in as anonymous and use your username as the password
3) cd ~ftp/pub/chipmunk
4) copy the file README, that contains more information.

We are unable to help users who do not have Internet ftp access.
Please do not post this announcement to a mailing list or Usenet
group; we are hoping to catch a few more bugs through this pre-release
before a general distribution begins.


    ******* PLEASE DO NOT DISTRIBUTE TO OTHER MAILING LISTS *******