SPICE, ADVICE, Celerity, and a Case of Beer: Working With a Man of Patience and Understanding

The author s arrived at Bell Labs in 1986 and 1987, about 10 years after Larry Nagel did. During that time, Larry had recreated his Ph.D. thesis-based SPICE circuit simulator at AT&T in a new circuit simulator called ADVICE, fixing many things that he thought were broken or outdated in SPICE and with a much more interactive feel. It is rumored that the high quality of the f77 Fortran compiler written by Stu Feldman owes much to Larry frequently breaking it daily with his ADVICE code. Larry then moved on to another position, and a group was formed to maintain and enhance ADVICE, which by then was the workhorse tool for all circuit design work within AT&T.