EuroPARC is developing an integrated multi-media environment as an integral part of its formal and informal working environment. From our initial experiences with this kind of technology, we and our colleagues believe that it exhibits several qualitatively different properties, which seem to call into question many of our ideas about what computer systems are and how people relate to them. This has caused us to step back and take stock of the design principles we are using and, more generally, to ask what are appropriate principles for CSCW applications and technologies.

This paper describes the Computerized Gate Array Layout system (CGAL), a general purpose tool developed at Sperry Univac to provide efficient and reliable automated layouts for a variety of master slice arrays. The system contains algorithms for the construction of initial placement, placement improvement, global routing, channel routing and planar routing. The system also provides for user interaction through a design language and graphical output.