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<TITLE>TKGate User Documentation (Preface)</TITLE>
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<H2>1. Introduction to TkGate</h2>
TkGate is a digital circuit editor and simulator with a Tcl/Tk-based
interface. TkGate includes a large number of built-in devices
including basic gates, memories, ttys and modules for hierarchical
design. The simulator can be controlled either interactively or
through a simulation script. Memory contents can be loaded from
files, and a microcode/macrocode compiler (gmac) is included to create
TkGate memory files from a high-level description. The simulator
supports continuous simulation, single step simulation (by clock or
epoch) and breakpoints. Save files are in a Verilog-like format.
<p>
A TkGate circuit is divided into one or more modules, with one of the
modules being designated the "top-level" or "root" module. A module
is composed of zero or more "gates" and wires to connect the gates.
We use the term "gate" loosely to refer to any circuit element.
Special "comment" gates can be used to place text in the circuit.
<p>
Creating a gate in TkGate is simply a matter of clicking the cursor to
set a position, and selecting a gate type from the menu. Since most
gate types have a one or two character shortcut, once you learn the
shortcuts you can perform most of your editing with one hand on the
keyboard and the other hand on the mouse. Moving gates is almost as
easy as creating them, simply select a gate (or gates) and drag them
to a new position, any wires connected to the gates will be moved
along with them and adjusted to ensure that they contain only
horizontal and vertical segments.
<a name="cloptions"></a>
<H3>1.1 Command Line Options</H3>
Start TkGate with a command of the form:
<pre>
% tkgate [options] [files ...]
</pre>
The following command-line options are supported:
<table class=display>
<th align=left width=100>Option</th><th align=left>Description</th></tr>
</tr>
<tr><td colspan=2><hr></td></tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-v</b></td><td valign=top>Be verbose about start-up error messages and warnings.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-V</b></td><td valign=top>Read the TkGate files specified on the command-line and
check them for internal errors, but do not start TkGate.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-h</b></td><td valign=top>Print the list of options.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-d</b></td><td valign=top>Turn on debugging.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-x</b></td><td valign=top>Automatically starts the simulator on start-up.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-q</b></td><td valign=top>Suppresses start-up messages.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-s</b></td><td valign=top>Executes with a synchronous X server connection. This option is primarily for debugging.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-n</b></td><td valign=top>Do not display the splash screen on start-up.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-l</b> <i>lib</i></td><td valign=top>Loads the specified library on start-up. Can be specified multiple times.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-L</b> <i>lang</i></td><td valign=top>Specifies the language to use. TkGate must have been built with multi-lingual support in order to use this option.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-O</b> <i>opts</i></td><td valign=top>Specifies a list of printer options.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-P</b> <i>printer</i></td><td valign=top>Print the specified circuit to a printer without starting up the GUI.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-p</b> <i>file</i></td><td valign=top>Print the specified circuit to a file without starting up the GUI.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>-X</b> <i>script</i></td><td valign=top>Starts the simulator and executes the specified simulation script.</td>
</tr>
<tr><td colspan=2><hr></td></tr>
</table>
The <b>-O</b> switch is used in conjunction with the <b>-p</b> or
<b>-P</b> switches to specify any printer options. The printer
options are given as a colon separated list of options. The following
printer options are supported through this interface:
<table class=display>
<th align=left width=100>Option</th><th align=left>Description</th></tr>
</tr>
<tr><td colspan=2><hr></td></tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>epsf=</b><i>bool</i></td><td valign=top>Use encapsulated Postscript format</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>duplex=</b><i>bool</i></td><td valign=top>Use duplex printing</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>index=</b><i>bool</i></td><td valign=top>Include index</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>hier=</b><i>bool</i></td><td valign=top>Include module hierarchy graph</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>paper=</b><i>type</i></td><td valign=top>Use the specified paper size</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>4up=</b><i>bool</i></td><td valign=top>Do 4-up printing of small modules</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=top><b>modules=</b><i>list</i></td><td valign=top>Comma separated list of modules to print</td>
</tr>
<tr><td colspan=2><hr></td></tr>
</table>
<a name="history"></a>
<H3>1.2 History of TkGate</H3>
<div class=rfig>
<a name=xgate>
<a href="fig/xgate.gif" type="image/gif" target=_blank><IMG SRC="fig/small-xgate.gif"><br>
(click to enlarge)</a><br><br>
<b>Figure 1.1: xgate - An Early XLib Based<br>Predecessor to TkGate</b>
</div>
TkGate begin life as an undergraduate project at Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU) in 1987. At that time it was called simply 'gate'
and ran under the 'wm' window manager, a windowing system developed at
CMU before X11 was widely used. This incarnation was used by students
in the computer architecture course at CMU to develop a simple
microprocessor (dubbed "The Bat Computer"). Many of the bitmap images
for the circuit elements and mode cursors (such as the wire-cutter
cursor) used today were originally designed in this version. This
version also contained the hidden pancake recipe which is still in
TkGate today.
<p>
After laying dormant for several years, it was resurrected in 1991 and
ported to run under X11 with the Xlib API. A screenshot of this
version, which was called "xgate", is shown in <a href="#xgate">Figure
1.1</a>. In this incarnation it was used several times by students in
the introductory digital logic course, but after the author graduated
and left CMU, it went into hibernation again.
<p>
Work on the first Tcl/Tk incarnation begun in 1998 as an exercise in
learning Tcl/Tk. It was also the first version to use a Verilog-like
save file format. Previous versions of gate/xgate used a Lisp-like
save file format.
<p>
The current version, TkGate 2.0, represents a substantial effort over
the previous 1.8 version. Whereas TkGate 1.8 was comprised of
approximately 73,000 lines of C and Tcl, TkGate 2.0 nearly doubles
that line count with over 130,000 lines of C and Tcl. Major
improvements added to TkGate 2.0 include an improved user interface,
true Verilog format save files, Verilog-based simulation, a module
interface editor, symbolic module interfaces and virtual peripheral
devices.
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