On 5/24/2010 7:56 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> Yes, the "label" is so that if you have a dozen subcircuits, you can
>>> tell which type each one is. It's _not_ for labelling a specific
>>> instance. (E.g., if you insert a register, you can't label it with a
>>> register name. You can only label it with the kind of register it is.)
>>
>> Right, but sometimes it would be nice to have a label that identifies
>> the particular instance. At least, that's what I would expect when
>> clicking on the item.
>
> I won't disagree with that... ;-)
>
>>> All I know is that I seem to spend more time trying to figure out how to
>>> move a component slightly to the side to make more space than actually,
>>> you know, designing my stuff! >_<
>>
>> Yeah, Routing can be a pain when moving components. You can turn on an
>> experimental feature where it allows you to sort of autoroute the
>> wires in some cases when moving a component, but I've found if you
>> move too far it will make bad connections. The algorithm that
>> autoroutes needs to be a bit smarter, but I think it may be an
>> instance of the halting problem.
>
> The Halting Problem is unsolvable. I doubt wire routine is unsolvable.
> Finding the "perfect" wire routine sounds a bit like the Travelling
> Salesman problem, which is NP-Complete, not *not* unsolvable. And a
> routing algorithm which doesn't alter topology and gives "reasonable"
> results ought to be quite possible, though possibly not easy...
>

I suppose that's correct.

http://www.freerouting.net/index.php?page=home

But can be rather difficult to calculate an optimal route. Of course, 
the program above treats wires as physical obstacles.

On thinking a bit more about it, it's probably not horribly difficult.


>
> I tried it on Friday. Jesus, it sucks so hard! Eats RAM like candy,
> locks up for minutes at a time for no apparent reason, and doesn't even
> look particularly good anyway. Basically there's nothing to recommend
> it. (Plus I had to wait 30 minutes for the .Net framework to install...)
>

Yeah, I didn't get that far.... about the point where I had to drag and 
drop components to the circuit was when I decided it wasn't a viable 
solution.

>>>> http://www.falstad.com/circuit/
>>>
>>> I didn't even know that thing had logic gates...
>>
>> It does. While it makes a great general circuit simulator, for
>> anything non-trival its far from ideal for logic simulation, though.
>
> Yeah, it's designed to show you examples, not for serious design work.
>

Yup, but a great learning tool :)

>> Now I'll finish it just to prove you wrong, so ... Nyah!
>
> Heh. I'd like to see that. ;-)

You'll see... you'll see.

-- 
~Mike

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