Computervision
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Computervision, Inc. (CV) was an early pioneer in turnkey Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) company. Computervision was founded in 1969 by Marty Allen and Philippe Villers, and headquartered in Massachusetts, USA. Its early products were built on a Data General Nova platform. Starting around 1975, Computervision built its own "CGP" (Computervision Graphics Processor) Nova-compatible 16-bit computers with added instructions optimized for graphics applications and using its own operating system known as Computervision Graphic Operating System (CGOS). In the 1980s, Computervision transitioned to Unix.
Computervision's first product, CADDS-1, was aimed at the printed circuit board layout and 2-D drafting markets. CADDS stood for Computervison Automated Design and Drafting System.
Integrated circuit layout was added with the CADDS-2 product, which had a dedicated operating system and a 16-bit graphic database. When this proved insufficient resolution for VLSI (very large scale integration), the company developed CADDS-2/VLSI in the late 1970s. CADDS-2/VLSI included a new operating system, a 32-bit database, and user expandability through a dedicated programming language called ICPL (integrated circuit programming language), which was a dialect of BASIC, based on an interpreter licensed from Fairchild Semiconductor. The original CADDS-2 ran on Data General Nova 1200 computers. CADDS-2/VLSI ran on Computervision's own hardware which were modified Data General Nova's and modified version of DG's operating systems.
CADDS3 was introduced in the late 1970s on the CGP80 and CGP100 using Tektronix storage tube vector devices.
Usable 3-D design was added in the early 1980s with the CADDS4 product on the CGP200. This version of CADDS moved display technology from storage tube base displays to raster graphics and introduced the dedicated graphics co-processor board known as the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).
With CADDS4 Tailored packages were available for CAD drafting, CAM (computer-aided manufacturing), 3-D modeling, piping and plant design, printed circuit board layout, instrument panel design, and many other applications. During this period, they also contributed to the development of the IGES standard for CAD/CAM data exchange, along with Applicon and other competitors.
The major breakthrough in 3-D Design was with the CADDS4X on the CGP200X running CGOS200X. This version of the operating system and hardware improved memory management (not true virtual memory) and increased program size. In 1984 a cluster of CGP200X with a proprietary 32-bit processor Analytic Processing Unit (APU) was offered as the Computervision Design System (CDS) 4000. The APU was sometimes called "All Paws Up".
In 1985, CV introduced an IBM 4361 based mainframe known as the CDS5000 to support Product Data Manager (PDM). This system never ran any a graphics software but instead was used to manage the large number of product files and data that users were generating. The CDS5000 was networked with CDS4000 and CGP200X systems using serial links.
Computervision was crucial to Sun Microsystems development as a company. CV was Sun's first large customer for Unix based workstations. The CDS 3000 series of workstations were actually Sun-2 systems with additional graphics hardware from CV. Ultimately in 1987, CV migrated from the DG derived CGP systems to Sun-3 based workstations known as CADDStations with a VME bus version of the GPU.
Computervision merged with Prime Computer in 1988 and acquired GE Calma (its major competitor in the microelectronic CAD market) in 1989. Computervision was acquired by Parametric Technology Corporation in 1998 which (as of 2005) still supports the CADDS-5i product for existing users.
