Customer Reviews

LogicWorks 5 Interactive Software

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a book/software combination. The first part of the book is a tutorial on how to used the accompanying software GUI. The second part of the book contains a brief introduction to event- driven simulation concepts and the VHDL language. In hindsight, this is a tool I would have loved to have when I was studying logic design in college. The book and software won't make you a digital designer but will help you apply what you learn and see for yourself how the logic you design performs. As with any simulator, there are compromises with reality and simulation, but this software is fine for introductory courses. There are some errors in the book mainly due to software versioning (slightly out of sync) but not impossible to infer the points being presented.

The chapters are:

Preface
1. Introduction

Part 1 Using LogicWorks 5
2. Getting Started
3. User Interface
4. Tutorial - The Five Minute Schematic and Simulation
5. Tutorial - Schematic Editing
6. Tutorial - Structural Simulation
7. Tutorial - Using VHDL in LogicWorks
8. Tutorial - Creating Device Symbols

Part II The VHDL Language
9. Simulation of Digital Systems Using VHDL
10. Basic Language Concepts
11. Modeling Behavior
12. Modeling Structure
13. Subprograms, Packages, and Libraries
14. Identifiers, Data Types, and Operators

Index

The book is clearly aimed towards a student wanting to learn logic design with VHDL simulation. As an other reviewer mentioned, small projects. The book/software package is a good deal for the price. There are few comparable open source or free projects that I am aware of (see Wikipedia) with functionality similar to LogicWorks 5. LogicWorks 5 is very good in this respect due to it's graphical interface and fairly reliable operation. There are some bugs, some nuances yet all considered this work is good for learning the subject. Plan on graduating to a higher cost package (e.g. Xilinx ISA, etc.) for serious use. Note that Prentice Hall doesn't appear to support this software on the phone number included with the help (at least not from their automated menu. Capilano consulting, the authors of the software/book, are slow or do not answer questions via email. I did have some success in calling them directly.

Finally, I noted that in the documentation, the use of the "VHDL" and "Verilog" (sparse and may have been on the Capilano web site) are both used to describe the simulation environment. Odd, because this simulator is clearly VHDL compatible not Verilog. In summary, plan on learning about logic design and VHDL with this book, prepare to interpret some of the tutorial instructions, and learn introductory digital design simulation.

If you have access to a Windows machine (Windows 2000/XP/NT 4.0) this is excellent software to learn digital concepts and simulate digital circuits. It's also a pretty decent schematic editor for simple circuits although I'd recommend DesignWorks Lite/Pro from Capilano Computing (capilano.com) as a better editor. LogicWorks software was originally developed on and for the Macintosh OS but version 5.0 doesn't support the Macintosh. For that there is LogicWorks 4.5 available directly from Capilano Computing ([...]) which supports MacOS 9 and X but doesn't include VHDL support.

I have used LogicWorks4 in a computer design class with fair results - (very good for small jobs - starts to get shaky with a thousand gates or so).

So far in my testing, LogicWorks5 has improved on most of the features I've tried. I think it also offers an excellent way to get started in VHDL (jury still out until I try it in a class). A bit flaky still with SP1 in a few areas.

Anyway - highly recommended.

I've been quite happy with LogicWorks 2.5.2 on my Macintosh. I ordered LogicWorks 5, under the mistaken impression it was Mac-compatible. It's not. Apparently versions 3 and 4 are also not Mac compatible. I've now bought DesignWorks, which runs on OS X.

Fairly useful program for building logic circuits and getting a visual of timing aspects, but program seems too buggy to totally recommend. I only bought it because it was required for a class.

Guys, if the $30ish Warehouse Deals option is still available, take it! The one I got from them looks brand new, and I bought used! It includes the CD as well as the book. The people selling at $100 are ripoffs compared to the price Warehouse Deals is selling at the moment of this review. I haven't used the software yet, as classes haven't started. Anyways, I saved $70 thanks to Warehouse Deals!

It's very useful and quite easy to use. It doesn't demand long hours of reading and trainment.

I've been using LogicWorks 5 for a university course, and have discovered that it does not even attempt to implement the VHDL standard correctly (admitting as much in what little documentation there is), and that it generates entirely useless errors when it is unable to interpret a line of code; whether this inability is a result of an error in the code or one of the many bugs in logicworks itself is impossible to determine, and you're lucky if you get so much as "Syntax error" as far as a human-readable description of the error goes.

Worse still, and affecting all parts (not merely the VHDL compiler) of the program, is the reasonably common error message which pops up for no clear reason declaring that a "serious error" has occurred and that "your data may be corrupted," before encouraging you to exit and restart the program as quickly as possible. I can't believe my university paid for a piece of software that never should have passed QA.

This product arrived in pristine shape exactly as advertised. The only thing that was misleading were conflicting
delivery dates. Originally I expected it to arrive in 2 days when it actually took a week. Other than that it
worked perfectly and I recommended purchasing used versions of this product to the rest of my classmates.

This is definitely a very good tool to learn about circuitry and such. I have to admit i only bought it because i was forced to for a class. And i did find it very pricey, seeing as we only used it for like 4 weeks! Nevertheless, it is still a good product. Definitely recommend it.