1994 List of Net Resources for the EDA User

May 11, 1994 I published this “List of Net Resources for the EDA User” in “Radio Free CAD CAE Issue 4”

• gopher kona.ee.pitt.edu 70 for SIGDA Archives
• e-mail acmhelp@acm.org for ACM (SIGDA parent) membership info
• ftp ftp.ieee.org for IEEE membership info
• gopher gopher.ieee.org for IEEE membership info
• e-mail info.index@ieee.org for IEEE membership info
• e-mail cfi@cfi.org for Cad Framework Initiative Membership Info
• e-mail jcooley@world.std.com for a subscription or back-issues to the E-Mail Synopsys User Group
• ftp ftp.erc.msstate.edu for the Mentor User Group Archives
• rn alt.cad for a news on general issues in CAD
• rn comp.cad.cadence for news on Cadence tools
• rn comp.cad.compass for news on Compass Design Automation tools
• rn comp.cad.synthesis news on synthesis issues; frequently Synopsys issues are posted here.
• rn comp.lang.verilog news on verilog as a language
• rn comp.lang.vhdl news on VHDL as a language
• rn comp.lsi news on IC issues and CAD, frequently cross-posted to comp.lsi.cad and vice versa.
• rn comp.lsi.testing news on LSI test issues; also attracts a fair number of “Test, please ignore” posts.
• rn comp.org.acm Newsgroup for ACM info;
• rn alt.sys.intergraph Intergraph users news; seems to have obsoleted/superseded comp.sys.intergraph.
• rn comp.sys.mentor Mentor User Group news;
• rn ieee.announce announcement from IEEE
• telnet asic.com 2110 to subscribe to ASIC & EDA Magazine (step by step entry of sub qualification form)
• e-mail benchmarks@mcnc.org generates a reply outlining the benchmarks available via ftp from MCNC. A summary of the automatic reply message appears in section 4.3.2 of this issues of Radio Free CAD CAE.
• ftp mcnc.mcnc.org for benchmarks from past IEEE/ACM sponsored conferences.
• e-mail dilbert-request@internex.net to get on Scott Adams (scottadams@aol.com) Dilbert mailing list. Make the first line of e-mail read: subscribe dilbert_list first-name last-name

Internet protocols were:

• Net news (rn was a newsreader, kind of like a feed reader today)
• ftp – file transfer protocol
• telnet an emulation of a bidirectional teletype, allowing you to login and interact with a remote system via a command line.
• gopher a text menu alternative to the world wide web, also allowed for searching and backward compatibility with older protocols.
• E-mail – the only protocol that survives in widespread use today.

The World Wide Web was starting to come onto the scene, but not yet for EE’s, it was particle physics leading the way. DAC in June of 1994 had a DACNET LAN local to conference. There was a local web server that presented pages on Sun workstations at the conference that Steve Evanczuk, Jeff Leader, Bruce Pinsky, Bryan Preas, Kathy Preas, and I worked together to do the first DAC website. So we could see the web coming and see that it would have a big impact on information and software distribution. But the resources on this list was what was actually available and in use in May of 1994.

I thought it would offer an interesting perspective to look back 15 years and see how completely things have changed in some ways, but the information needs haven’t really changed. ESNUG still continues as DeepChip, comp.cad.cadence has become the Cadence on-line community, comp.sys.mentor has become the Mentor on-line community, etc.. Something to consider in looking ahead at the next 15 years