1978

Grado founded; development of Autoboard begun.

Racal-Redac introduces MAXI PCB design and schematic.

1980

Interactive PCB design workstation released by Racal-Redac.

Grado ships Autoboard to customers.

1981

Mentor Graphics Corp. founded by ex Tektronix engineers Tom Bruggere, Gerry Langeler and Dave Moffenbeier.

Praegitzer Industries Inc. founded by Robert Praegitzer.

Aryeh Finegold and David Stamm form Daisy Systems.

1982

ECAD Inc., predecessor to Cadence, is founded.

Electronics Workbench (formerly Interactive Image Technologies) founded.

Racal-Redac introduces CADET PCB design system, world’s first microprocessor-based system.

1983

ACCEL founded to build hardware database for sorting accelerator.

Mentor Graphics merges with CADI to form PCB division.

Richard Nedbal founds PCAD (Personal CAD Systems Inc.)

James Solomon founds SDA Systems.

Daisy, Mentor, Motorola, National Semiconductor, Tektronix, Texas Instruments, and the University of California develop EDIF, a vendor neutral format for netlists and schematics.

L. Curtis Widdoes, Tom McWilliams and Jeff Rubin found Valid Logic Systems.

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