ACS with the "free" Borland compiler
I've been reading the manual for ACS, and I've
come to the conclusion that there are four things
that make ACS problematic for actual use -
No .nodeset command,
No .IC command,
No BJT model,
No way to store results in a compact binary file,
for use with a post-processor.
Presumably, the lack of a BJT model should be fixed
soon after the model compiler is working, although
I suspect it will still be a non-trivial task to
"define" a BJT in whatever language the compiler
uses.
I think you can mostly get round the lack of a .IC
card using ideal switches and some voltage sources,
although this would get very painful if you needed
to set a lot of nodes.
The nodeset one is more difficult. The condition
I'm thinking about is where you need to set some
flip flops, but you don't want to apply a reset,
'cos that might block something else you're trying
to check out. Nodesets in spice don't necessarily
guarantee you'll get the state you want, but at
least you can try.
Finally, the binary output capability is essential
for me, 'cos I make so many mistakes in my big
circuits that I don't know, beforehand, which signals
I'll need to look at.
Has anyone else got any opinions about what they'd
like to see in ACS ?
By the way, I'm not trying to "slag-off" ACS. There
are a lot of things in it that I like the look of,
that's why I think it's worth the effort of adding
these features which would make it more
"pin-compatible" with spice.
Whadya think ?
Alan
Partial thread listing:
- ACS with the "free" Borland compiler, (continued)