In my column last month, I wrote about the give-and-take on the hardware newsgroups, saying that I intended to do a little taking in my next column-this one. My "give" was to share with readers a www pointer to a PC-based universal file translator, called Quick View Plus, that can handle up to 200 different file formats.
It can be found at www.digitalriver.com/aladdin/jasc.
And, as usual, my readers were quick to point out my errors and oversights.
Independent consultant Greg Bell, Wilber Harvey of Sinewave and Dave Millman of Tactics all wrote to say that Quick View Plus now sells for $40 instead of the out-to-lunch $110 I quoted.
And making me feel even smaller, Ken Butler of Texas Instruments and Eng Han Lee of Advanced Micro Devices wrote about a "free" universal file viewer from Sun Microsystems at www.sun.com/desktop/products/software/pcviewer.
"I have Sun's PCFileViewer installed on my Unix machine. There were only two small problems. It only runs on Solaris 2.6 or later, and it doesn't seem to like multipage PowerPoint files. (I only can see the first page, and can't scroll past it)," wrote Ken. "Other than that, it's fast, and it gives me a quick view of attachments without having to go to a PC."
Now that I've cleaned up my "give," here's my "take."
A few months ago, Larry Williams of Ansoft wrote: "John, several years ago, the EDA vendors migrated away from hard-copy manuals and substituted online documentation. The argument went that users didn't want a shelf full of three-ring binders without an easy way to find the information.
"Later, when engineers began using the online documents, they often found them cumbersome to navigate and often incomplete. Now many have asked for a hard-copy version, explaining that it is impossible to look at the EDA interface and the online documentation simultaneously."
Larry asks: "What are your thoughts? Do you like Frameviewer on the Unix platforms? Microsoft help on the PC? An HTML document or PDF for either platform? A combination of online help plus hard copy?"
So now, with apologies to Bugs Bunny, I'm using my column to ask my readers, "Eh, what's up, doc?" (Sorry for the horrible pun. My therapist says it's better that I let them out rather than let them fester inside me.) And my serious side really does want to know what you think about the online-docs vs. hard-copy question. Please e-mail what you think. And, yes, I'll summarize the results and share them with everyone.
Good old give-and-take.
John Cooley runs the E-mail Synopsys Users Group (ESNUG), is a contract ASIC designer and loves hearing from engineers at jcooley@world.std.com or (508) 429-4357.
