TKGATE(1)

📦 version 2.1, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 NAME 💖

okay so bestie, meet tkgate — it's a Tcl/Tk based digital circuit editor and simulator. like, you draw circuits AND you simulate them. main character energy fr fr 👑

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

tkgate [-xqs] [-X script] [-l file] [-p file] [-P printer] [files...]

that's it, that's the whole vibe check ✨ (this page lives in the General Commands Manual section, for the record, tkgate(1) iykyk)

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

TkGate is a graphical editor and event driven simulator for digital circuits, with a tcl/tk-based interface. no cap.

The circuit elements it supports? A whole lineup, bestie:

  • basic gates (AND, OR, etc.) 🎀
  • tri-state gates
  • adders
  • multipliers
  • registers
  • memories
  • mos transistors

Hierarchical design is supported too, with support for user defined modules 🧚. And the save files? They're based on the Verilog netlist format. slay.

TkGate documentation can be found at:

https://bitbucket.org/starling13/tkgate

go read it, it's giving reference material 💜

✨ OPTIONS ✨

The options are as follows, and yes we're going through every single one:

  • -X script — Automatically start the simulator and execute the specified simulation script. it just goes, no clicking required 🔥
  • -p file — Print circuit to file without starting GUI. headless printing, we love a no-window moment 🫶
  • -P printer — Print circuit to printer without starting GUI. straight to the printer, no screen involved 💅
  • -l file — Read the specified file as a library.
  • -x — Automatically start the simulator.
  • -q — Suppress startup messages. quiet mode, respect it 🤫
  • -s — Execute with a synchronous X server connection. this one is primarily for debugging, so it's giving "dev tools, not for the group chat" 💀
  • -L lang — Specify a locality to use if tkgate has been configured for Japanese support. The locality should be either "ASCII" for English, or "ja_JP.EUC" for Japanese. This option can also be set via the LANG environment variable.
not me pointing out that -L is real even though it's not in the synopsis line. it's right there in the options, bestie, don't skip it 🙈

📜 HISTORY & CREDITS 📜

okay this is the lore and it's actually iconic so sit down 🎀

TkGate began 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. In this incarnation it was used by students in the computer architecture course at CMU to develop a simple microprocessor (dubbed "The Bat Computer"). obsessed, honestly 🦇

After laying dormant for several years, it was resurrected in 1991 and ported to run under X11 with the Xlib API. 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 😭

This Tcl/Tk incarnation was begun in 1998. While there is certainly some cruftyness in the implementation in places due to the multiple reincarnations, many new features have been added since the older wm and X11 versions, and the interface has been made much easier to use. glow-up complete 💅✨

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

go read those too, bestie, we support the whole friend group 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

  • Jeffery Hansen (hansen@tkgate.org)
  • Andrey V. Skvortsov (starling13@gmail.com)
  • Copyright (c) 1987-2015 by Jeffery Hansen
  • Copyright (C) 2015-2018 by Andrey V. Skvortsov

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this was TKGATE(1) from the General Commands Manual — go build a Bat Computer of your own. periodt. 💅🎀✨

📦 where this page comes from