( DAC 99 Item 45 ) ----------------------------------------------- [6/25/99]

 WE DID NOT PRINT THAT  Two weeks before DAC, Kluwer Academic sent out a
 flyer advertising various chip design books. ( http://www.wkap.nl )  The
 book "Understanding Behavioral Synthesis" by John Elliot, a Mentor
 employee, was on the cover of the Kluwer flyer.  This got me curious
 because Mentor offered an interesting new behavioral synthesis tool,
 Monet, two years ago -- so I wondered if the book was about Monet or
 Behavioral Compiler from Synopsys.  At the Kluwer booth at DAC, I asked
 for the book.  The guy in the Kluwer booth said "Mentor bought the entire
 first edition run for its customers."  I said, "That's OK.  I just want
 to look at a copy of it for a minute."  He replied: "Legally, all I can
 say is that Mentor bought the entire first edition run for its customers."
 Oh.  So 750 copies in that first printing at $115 each, that's $86,250
 Mentor spent to hide something...   Hmmmm....

    "The worst freebie was Altera's pool cues -- these did not unscrew
     in the middle -- how the hell do you get them on the plane????"

         - an anon engineer