Gov. & the machine(s) we love

[Jon Elson]

> On 2015-Oct-30, at 7:25 PM, william degnan wrote:
>> So chances are that various government programs helped at the margins,
>> but were not drivers.
(Think I got that attribution right...)

Well, one BIG thing that moved LSI forward was the VHSIC 
project and others at DARPA.  They funded a lot of work on 
computer programs to synthesize digital logic (VHDL), 
analyze chip performance (SPICE) and also MOSIS, which 
allowed people to experiment with designs and share the cost 
of masks and wafer fab.  SPICE has been there from the very 
beginning, VHDL and MOSIS came later, after digital ICs were 
already in production, but certainly were a huge help as 
chips became more complicated.

There are probably other projects in this vein.

Jon