C U R V E C A P T O R --- R E A D M E
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Curve Captor is a free vacuum tube modeling software that brings the
advantages of modern computer simulation tools to design of vacuum tube
electronics. It can build Spice-compatible models from the traced tube
data (either from datasheet curves or obtained elsewhere) and do bias
and loadline calculations, as well as simple waveform analysis for
common gain stages. Generated non-linear models are macro-based and
easily adaptable to various flavors of Spice, and are sophisticated
enough to give realistic distortion figures. Simple GUI and high
computational speed assist rapid development cycle.
Curve Captor is designed to be portable. It is written in Tcl/Tk (GUI),
standard C (numerical backend) with FFTW libraries (for distortion
calculations), and uses m4 at runtime (for macro models). Curve Captor
is developed under Linux and is distributed under the terms of GNU
Public License.
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!!! W A R N I N G : Vacuum tube circuits involve LETHAL voltages. !!!
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! !
! If you electrocute yourself using this software or models, I am not !
! responsible. I repeat, 400V is just a number for a computer program, !
! but grounded through your body it is a LETHAL current. !
! !
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Quick getting started guide:
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Included in this distribution are:
README - this file
curvecaptor - GUI frontend
tubefit.c - numerical backend
models.m4 - macro model definitions
This is a source code only distribution; compile numerical backend by
editing Makefile to suit your machine configuration and then running
make. Edit models.m4 if your Spice distribution syntax differs from
standard Spice 3F4. Install binaries (curvecaptor and tubefit) as well
as models.m4 to a directory somewhere in your PATH. Run curvecaptor to
start the GUI. Further progress should be described in documentation,
which is non-existent at the moment. Good luck.
Bug reports, patches, suggestions, flames, etc. should go to the author.
Well, that's all for now...
-- Andrei Frolov <frolov@cita.utoronto.ca>