History
Work on a flexible topological router began in 1988, when it became clear that the traditional methods of routing with regular and irregular grids (grid-based routers and shape-based routers) and consecutive wiring with locked-down geometry were a dead-end solution.
1996 saw the release of the first version of a topological router that actually came to be used by industrial enterprises. The FreeStyle Router ran under MS-DOS and successfully routed dual-layer boards. This early router showed the advantages of an innovative approach to routing and high efficiency of the models, algorithms, and software implementation. A 1.44MB floppy disk was enough for the program and accompanying examples; the routing was much faster and better than competitive products.
The first Windows version of the topological router was released in 2001 and named TopoR. The program routed not only dual-layer but also multilayer printed circuit boards.
Read more about this topic: Topo R
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