The AED approach to generalized computer-aided design

This paper has been written in response to a request for an up-to-date broad view of the approach to computer-aided design taken by the M.I.T. Computer-Aided Design Project. Included in the suggestion was the hope that such a description would help to illuminate, expecially for people who are not system programmers, the major features which any computer-aided design system must have in order to be a useful practical tool. This has proved to be a difficult assignment, because there are several audiences involved. Engineers, designers, managers, programmers, and system programmers all have different interests in the problems of computer-aided design. With several notable exceptions, however, all of these types of people seem to lack a clear understanding of what “design” means, and just what is required to really involve the computer in the design process.