Design and Construction Software.

# 11. Design and Construction Software.

Contents of this section

Software to assist in the design and construction of amateur radio related things. Antenna, Circuit Board, Filter, and QSL card design packages are all good candidates for this section.

## 11.1 Software Oscilloscope

Author

  Jeff Tranter, Jeff_Tranter@Mitel.COM

Description

  Scope is a simple software emulation of an oscilloscope. It graphically displays voltage as a function of time.

Status

  ALPHA. First release.

System requirements

  Sound card with input capability supported by the kernel sound driver. SVGALIB is used to do the display work.

Detail

  Scope uses the `/dev/dsp` device to take audio in from the soundcard and displays it on the screen in a manner similar to an oscilloscope. Jeff claims Scope was written more for amusement value than for any serious purpose.

Where and How to obtain it.

  You can obtain source, makefile and man page for Scope from: sunsite.unc.edu

Licensing/Copyright

  GNU Public License, Freely redistributable, No warranty.

## 11.2 Printed Circuit Board design tool.

Author

  Thomas Nau, <Thomas.Nau@rz.uni-ulm.de>

Description

  An X11 based interactive printed circuit board design tool.

Status

  Vers 1.3, stable.

System requirements

  X11 Windowing system and a recent flex program.

Detail

  The pcb package comes with good instructions on how to compile and install the software. I compiled it without error under X11R6. It comes with package layouts for a range of popular components and the example layout nicely demonstrates the capabilities of the package.

Where and How to obtain it.

  You can obtain the pcb package from: sunsite.unc.edu or from: ftp.medizin.uni-ulm.de

Licensing/Copyright

  GNU Public License

## 11.3 Chipmunk circuit design and simulation tool

Author

  Dave Gillespie <daveg@synaptics.com> and John Lazzaro <lazzaro@cs.berkeley.edu>

Description

  Schematic Entry and Digital or Analog Simulation.

Status

  vers 5.10, stable.

System requirements

  X11 windowing system and older (XFree86-2.x) libs, 8 bpp (256 color) only

Detail

  I haven't tried this one out yet.

Where and How to obtain it.

  You can obtain the Chipmunk package from: sunsite.unc.edu or ifi.uio.no .

Licensing/Copyright

  Modified GNU Public License, Caltch specifically disclaimed from liability.

## 11.4 irsim

Author

  Dmitry Teytelman, dim@leland.stanford.edu

Description

  An event-driven logic-level simulator for MOS circuits

Status

  Version 9.2, production.

System Requirements

  X-Windows.

Detail

  irsim is an X11 based simulator for MOS circuits. It has two simulation modes, either switch where each transistor is modelled as a voltage controlled switch, or linear where each transistor is modelled as a resistor in series with a voltage controlled switch, and each node has a capacitance.

Where and How to obtain it.

  You can obtain irsim from: sunsite.unc.edu .

Licensing/Copyright

  Freely Redistributable

## 11.5 Spice vers. 3f4

Author

  University of California, Berkeley, ported by Jeff@EE.Ryerson.Ca

Description

  Spice is an analog circuit emulator.

Status

  Stable release.

System requirements

  Unknown.

Detail

  Spice allows you to design and test circuits in a computer modelled environment to see how they will behave without having to touch a soldering iron, or solder. A `readme` file comes with the package. To install I did the following:

  > `

  >     # cd /usr/src
  >     # gzip -dc spice3f4.tar.gz | tar xvf -
  >     # cd spice3f4
  >     # ./utils/build linux
  >     # ./utils/build linux install

  > `

Where and How to obtain it.

  You can obtain version 3f4 of Spice from: sunsite.unc.edu

Licensing/Copyright

  Copyright held by University California, Berkeley. Freely redistributable provided you are not unfriendly to the U.S.

## 11.6 svgafft - Spectrum analyser

Author

  Andrew Veliath, drewvel@ayrton.eideti.com

Description

  svgafft is a spectrum analyser for Linux.

Status

  Alpha software, but usable.

System requirements

  Linux supported sound card, svgalib, a 486DX33 or better.

Detail

  svgafft uses the `/dev/dsp` device and currently supports 16-bit and 8-bit sample resolution on supported Linux soundcards. It's display is something akin to a high-end spectrum analyzer with falling peaks.

Where and How to obtain it:

  Look for `svgafft-0.2.tar.gz` on `sunsite.unc.edu`

Licensing/Copyright

  Unknown, check any `README` supplied.

## 11.7 Audio Spectrum Analyser

Author

  Philip VanBaren, phillipv@eecs.umich.edu

Description

  An audio spectrum analyser for Linux SVGALIB or X-Windows.

Status

  Alpha but usable

System requirements

  Linux supported sound card, svgalib or X-Windows.

Detail

  freq5a1 uses the `/dev/dsp` device, samples the incoming audio, performs a fast fourier transform on the data and displays the output in either 640x480 VGA or an X-Window.

Where and How to obtain it:

  You can obtain freq5a1.tar.gz from: umich.edu , sunsite.unc.edu or by mail from the author.

Licensing/Copyright

  GNU Public License vers 2.0.

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