Digital Electronics Deeds

   Deeds-DcS   

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  Truth Table Generator

The new Truth Table Generator allows you to perform combinatorial network analysis exercises by manually filling in the corresponding truth table and verifying the solution. It also allows you to automatically generate the table, if needed.

A complete description of the new Truth Table Generator can be found here.

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  'Add Pulse Train At' command

The new command 'Add Pulse Train At' has been added to the Timing Diagram. Anyway, the previous existing 'Add a Pulse Train' command remains unchanged. They are located in the drop-down menu of track buttons, as you see below.

The selected track must be an input such as a Switch or Push-button. The new command is similar, but allows you to introduce a sequence of pulses starting from any instant and not just from the last transition present on the track, as the previous command does.

With the new command it is possible to insert a pulse train even after the Simulation End Time, since the other one is hidden when the simulation has already started.

The command activates an exor figure similar to that of inserting a new transition, which allows you to select the starting point of the first transition of the 'pulse train'. You cannot select a time before the Simulation End Time, and it must also be after the last transition already present in that track.

An example follows, in which a train of twelve pulses has been added to a trace.

A full description of the new Add Pulse Train At command can be found here.

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  Timing Diagram Optimization

Message Panels and 'hourglass' mouse icon
'Message Panels' have also been introduced in the Timing Diagram, to inform the user about the waits that occur when we load a test sequence and its database is relatively large, so as not to make the window appear 'frozen'.

Additionally, the 'hourglass' mouse icon has been added in several situations that require a bit of a wait, such as when changing the vertical size of tracks, or when expanding and contracting subtracks...

Command Name Changes
The 'Delete a Stored Sequence' command is now 'Delete a Test Sequence.'
The 'New Test Sequence' command is now 'Clear Test Sequence.'

Timing Diagram Resizing and Scrolling
The vertical resizing of the timeline window has been optimized. Now, resizing the window vertically refreshes it with a small delay, preventing the window from freezing. A similar optimization has been implemented for managing vertical scrolling of tracks. Moving the window on the screen has also been optimized.

Microcomputer's Object Code window
We've added a 'Run' button to the toolbar of the microcomputer's Object Code window. Without it, the user had to go to the timing diagram and press 'Play.' Now, you can do it conveniently from the Object Code window. Its functionality is identical to that of the timing diagram's 'Play' button.

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  Bug Fixes

Test on FPGA dialog
In the 'Test on FPGA' dialog, when an FPGA board was not yet selected, a corrupted image appeared in the center of the area. Now the bug has been fixed (see below).

Fixed a bug that occasionally appeared. Under certain conditions, the red rectangles indicating associations were not displayed. This has now been fixed.

We have fixed and modified the layout of the component association settings fields, particularly for "Clock" and "Potentiometers." See examples below.

VHDL generation
Exporting to VHDL code a file containing only components that cannot be exported to VHDL (e.g., Dot Matrix Display components) resulted in a crash instead of reporting an error. The bug has now been fixed, and the user is warned that the circuit cannot be exported.

CBE deleting
When deleting a CBE containing an FSM having the same name as one also present in the main schematic, the database would become corrupted. Unfortunately, the problem only manifested upon reopening the file, when the FSMs would then appear drawn in the main schematic with unnamed pins. This bug has been resolved.

Microcomputer Component Labels
The user-assigned label was not displayed on the Microcomputer component if the program was not loaded and compiled. This bug has now been fixed. Furthermore, the default strings on the symbol are now more accurate and consistent.

Timing Diagram and Microcomputer 'Object Code' window
During the Timing Simulation, messages did NOT appear in the 'Object Code' window of the microcomputer debugger, as they regularly did in Deeds-McE, for example, when a breakpoint was encountered. Now it works, and the messages are displayed not only at the bottom of the Timing Diagram, but also in the "Object Code" window of the debugger of the microcomputer to which the simulation refers.

Instruction Step in the Timing Diagram
The handling of the "Instruction Step" command in the Timing Diagram's microprocessor simulation was incomplete. Specifically, if a simulation stopped at a breakpoint, the step button on the specific track for that micro was not activated, and the space bar also no longer produced the step. Now everything works as expected.
Note that it's correct for the space bar to be inactive in the animation simulation, because there could be ambiguity about which of the micros we want to direct the step command to.

Crash when closing the Timing Diagram
An issue where the program would occasionally crash when closing the timing diagram has been fixed.

Component Context Menu
In the context menu of various components (e.g., 'Test Points'), a menu item to open the 'Linear Gauge' Help page erroneously appeared. This bug has been fixed.

   Deeds-McE  

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  Bug Fixes

INT Interrupt Button
When simulating a sample interrupt program (e.g., IntHandshakeTx.mce), pressing the INT button produced no result. However, when testing in Deeds-DCS, it worked fine. This bug has now been fixed.

Code Editor - Capital Letters
In the source code editor, under certain conditions, entering certain capital letters required the uppercase keyboard to be enabled. This issue has been fixed.

Code Editor - Find & Replace Commands
Find & Replace commands have been fixed and improved. Additionally, pressing the "ESC" key now properly exits these commands.

Code Editor - Annoying "Beeps"
Some annoying "Beeps" that were generated when editing source code (for example, when pressing the left arrow if we were already at the beginning of a line) have been silenced.

Code Editor - Click Point
When Deeds-McE was in the background, and I clicked on the editor, activating it, the cursor wouldn't move to the click point. This problem has now been fixed.

   All Deeds Tools   

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  Online help documentation

The Online help documentation for all Deeds tools is currently under development.