A study of the response time considerations for a PC-based CAD network

Personal Computers (PCs) have entered the field of design in a relatively short period of time. PC-based Computer Aided Design (CAD) networks are a new development. More importantly, the technology behind the development did not come about with timing factors in mind. Orginally, CAD system advancements came from the automobile and the aircraft industry. These corporations discovered the need to improve their design departments in order to keep up with their workload. In the 1980's the Personal Computer came to the attention of smaller corporations that could not afford the very expensive and large CAD systems. Software was written to perform CAD capabilities for the PCs. CAD system designers are now discovering ways to network the PCs to form a PC-based system allowing CAD functions to be performed with less cost than the orginal larger networks. In order to ensure that the PC-based networks will be useful, response times for the user must be minimized. Six timing aspects of a PC-based network are discussed to show the points of interest for this type network. A particular network being developed by the Tennessee Valley Authority is presented to exemplify how some of these details were considered. Based on these studies, specific recommendations are presented for a general PC-based network.