TkGate FAQ

1. What platforms does TkGate run on?
   This program was developed and tested using FreeBSD and several flavors of Linux. Earlier versions of TkGate have been tested under Solaris (SunOS 5.5.1 and 5.7), but the most recent versions have not been tested. A version running under Mac OS X (see special intructions) is also available. Tkgate will also run under Windows using Cygwin. See the tkgate for cygwin installation page for details.

2. What save-file differences are there between between versions?
   For the most part, there are no differences between versions, except that new features may be occasionally added. In general a save file generated by an older version of tkgate will always be readable by a later version, but the reverse may not always be true. Save files generated by 1.5 and later can contain "technology" information which is unreadable by earlier versions unless the "default" technology is used for all gates. Save files created by 1.6 and later which contain D-FF circuit elements may not be readable by earlier versions. There was also a minor adjustment to the position of wires on "tap" circuit elements in version 1.6. These wire positions are automatically adjusted when reading old save files.

3. There is a patch for the version I am using, how do I apply it?
   Use the "patch" command to apply it. "cd" to the directory above your tkgate distribution directory. And use the command:

       patch < patch-file-name
   

4. Which patches should I use?
   If there are patches for a version of tkgate, they will appear in the a list immediately below the description of changes for that version. Be sure to apply only patches that are for the version you have. For example, if you are using version 1.6b, do not apply any patches for version 1.6. Patches for version 1.6b will have names of the form "tkgate-1.6b.patch?" where "?" is the number of the patch.

5. Is the save file Verilog compliant?
   The save file format is not completely Verilog compliant. This is due to the fact that the current format actually evolved from a previous tkgate-specific format with semantics not directly translatable to Verilog. A future version of tkgate will fix this problem.

6. When I set or remove probes, why is there a delay before I see the results?
   When setting a probe or querying a value on a running simulation which already has traces displayed on the scope, there can be a noticable delay before the trace begins recording or the value is displayed. This is due to buffering of the simulation results between the simulator and the tkgate GUI.

7. Some of the results returned by the critical path feature seem wrong?
   The critical path feature has a bug which can sometimes return incorrect paths/delays for the 2nd (and subsequent) longest paths. The displayed path can also be confusing sometimes when it passes through module ports.

8. I am a native speaker of Esperanto and I would like to provide a translation of tkgate to help other native speakers of Esperanto. What do I need to do?
   To create support for a new locale you need to create a subdirectory "locale/??/" in the tkgate home directory where "??" is the two character ISO-639-1 code for the language ("eo" in the case of Esperanto). At a minimum, the directory should contain the file "messages" which contains contains a list of tags and associated strings. You can start by copying the English messages file from "locale/en/messages" to the target locale directory. Currently only languages with two character codes are supported so if you are a native speaker of Avestan which only has a three character code, you may be out of luck for now. In addition to the messages file, it is also possible to create localized tutorials and examples directories. Copy these from "locale/en" and use tkgate to edit them.

   Note: If you do choose to to a locale port, please contact me first to make sure no one is is working on one for your locale.