Puff

Version 2.1

News

7-Nov-06

To get around the limitations of the native MS-DOS emulation built into Windows XP, the group of Prof. Gedney at the University of Kentucky has found that Puff can be run under an alternate, superior DOS emulator called DOSBox. This allows, for example, to run Puff in a regular window, to take screenshots, or to speed up simulations.
DOSBox can be installed from the DOSBox website. After installation, Puff can be run inside DOSBox by:

• Dragging the Puff executable (puff.exe) onto the DOSBox icon. This will automatically mount the Puff directory and start the Puff program.
• Modifying the DOSBox icon/shortcut (or a custom copy thereof) to append the full path to the Puff executable to the DOSBox command line (Right click->Properties->Target). This will automatically mount the Puff directory and start the Puff program when clicking the icon. Additional DOS commands to be run before Puff (e.g. to mount extra directories) can be appended to the DOSBox command line through the -c option.
• Appending the commands to mount the Puff directory, change into the Puff drive/directory, and run the Puff program to the dosbox.conf configuration file [autoexec] section. If necessary, a customized version/copy of the configuration file can be passed to the DOSBox via its -conf command line option (see above).

More information about DOSBox and its usage and configuration is available in the DOSBox Wiki.
Note: Puff requires access to a printer port (LPT1:). On computers without a printer port, DOSBox will abort with a Runtime Error 008 when trying to start Puff. Recent versions of DOSBox (>0.65) add a fake LPT1: emulation to get around this issue. If necessary, download and install a recent CVS development build to fix the error.

17-Jun-02

There is a small utility called TpPatch which can patch an existing copy of Puff to fix the Runtime Error 200 bug (see below). This might be interesting for people who don't want to downloaded the patched Puff or who need to work with an old version. Thanks to Robert Strand for the tip!

22-Jan-01

Peter-Tjerk de Boer (PA3FWM) has created a Linux version of Puff based on the Linux FreePascal compiler. In addition to the compiler and PA3FWM's modifications, the original Pascal sources (see ordering information below) are needed in order to compile Puff under Linux.

24-Oct-98

Update for previously distributed versions of Puff 2.1 released!
The update fixes a bug which caused a program crash ('Runtime Error 200') on relatively fast machines immediately at startup. The program is aborted even before the Puff info screen appears. The crash was caused by a bug in the initialization code of the libraries shipped with the compiler. On fast processors an internal timer could overflow and eventually lead to a "division by zero" error. Go to download area to get the latest version.

Description

Puff is a program for computer aided design and analysis of RF circuits. It was originally developed at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the research group under Prof. David Rutledge.

Based on Caltech's version 2.0 we then developed some enhancements and added some additional useful features to Puff. This version 2.1 of Puff has been distributed in Germany since 1997. In cooperation with Prof. Rutledge at Caltech it will now also become available in the US.

Additional information:

• Puff home page at Caltech.
• Puff support in Japan.
• Description of enhancements in Puff 2.1.
• A more in-depth article about Puff 2.1 which appeared in the German RF journal UKW-Berichte in February 1997 (in German!).

For information about ordering a copy of Puff including disks and a complete manual:

• Order information at Caltech.
• Information about distribution in Japan.
• In Germany, distribution is handled by UKW-Berichte. Please contact:
        Verlag UKW-Berichte und Fachversand für Funkzubehör, P.O. Box 80, D-91081 Baiersdorf, Germany
        Tel: +49 9133 7798-0, Fax: +49 9133 7798-33
        E-mail: ukwbericht@aol.com, Web: http://www.ukw-berichte.de

Download the latest version of Puff 2.1: puff21.zip

Note that this doesn't come with any manual. Check the ordering information on how to obtain a copy of the program including a printed manual.