Microcomputer-based computer-aided design (micro-CAD) systems, today, generally do not have adequate facilities for managing team-based design projects. This severely limits their effectiveness for complex projects involving several designers working concurrently, when compared to their engineering workstation-based counterparts. The authors describe the development of a concurrent design environment for micro-CAD systems, based on commercially available local area network operating systems, which overcome this disadvantage to some extent. They also illustrate the use of the design methodology, MASCOT (a modular approach to software construction operation and test), for designing distributed computing systems.
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