In 1983-1984, EAS was a short-lived maker of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems for electronics schematic and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design.  The company developed a product that modernized the drawing and design process, replacing the earlier workflow of drafting schematics by hand and then manually laying out the corresponding PCB artwork to an automated process.  Their product included the EAS/300 workstation, which was used for the schematic entry. This workstation was an IBM-PC running proprietary software on top of a standard DOS operating system.  It connected to the EAS/700 processor unit, a dedicated EAS-designed device which used the schematic data and physical constraints for the PCB to create the corresponding layout and routing design automatically.  The interface was via an RS-232 serial (or alternatively an early Ethernet LAN) connection.  The processor unit was built around the Microbar DBC68K2 single board computer with a Motorola 68000 microprocessor in a Leadless Chip Carrier (LCC) package (MC68000ZB10) and used an Intel Multibus (IEEE-796) backplane.  Also present on the backplane was 512k of memory for the 68000 (upgradable to 1.5MB), as well as a Central Data Corp. Octal Serial Interface card (0800-0018-00), a Konan disk controller and a custom graphics controller board.  The Excelan 99000 (EXD5/101) ethernet card was used for the Ethernet option.  The processor unit had its own internal 15MB (or later 40MB) MFM hard disk drive and booted Xenix, Microsoft's flavor of UNIX licensed from AT&T.  Its embedded software was written in C and included the core PCB design engine, as well as significant graphical capabilities and drivers for various plotters.  The video graphics subsystem included a separate dedicated 8086 processor (Mitsubishi M5L8086S) mated with an 8087 math co-processor (Intel C8087-3) and its own 256k of memory.  This then interfaced with a large video board that used DMA to feed dual NEC uPD7220 Graphic Display Controllers.  These chips not only generated the raster-display video signals but also offered intelligent features to off-load some graphics operations, like figure drawing, panning and zooming.  The system came standard with a 19-inch Conrac color monitor at 1024 x 780 resolution.  The output was photolithographic mask sheets for the production of the PCBs.  These were generated by a plotter, such as those by HP, that could support 0.1mm resolution.

EAS had a modest customer base, including buyers in its home state of Connecticut, as well as many customers in California and elsewhere, selling about 50 systems in total.  Ultimately, EAS was forced to close when their lender, the Bank of Boston, suddenly recalled a $1 million loan during its money laundering scandal of 1985.  Because of the tech bubble bursting at that time, many smaller companies in the tech industry struggled in the mid 80s.

The items pictured here came from a former field service engineer, Paul, who had kept his original test system and various other components from his time there.  Sadly, much of the software and documentation, as well as any fully working models are lost to time.   But thanks, Paul, for sharing what you had.

Company address:

  Engineering Automation Systems, Inc.
  52 Chamberlain Highway
  Kensington, Connecticut USA