Use Excel Borders to Draw Timing Diagram

I need to demonstrate some signal timing information in timing diagrams this week. Not being a VHDL developer, I found an amateurish way to do that: use Excel's cell border to shape the signal.

Suppose I'm going to draw the following diagram,

1. Create a new sheet and reduce the width of all columns to 20 pixels or less. The width of a column will be used as the minimum clock width in the whole diagram.
2. In the Border Toolbar, click "Draw Borders" to open the "Draw Border Toolbar". Choose the line type if you like.
3. Use the "pencil" to draw your diagram, use the "rubber" to erase.
4. For signals of data bus type, use "Fill Color" or "Fill Pattern".
5. Cut/Copy and Paste also works, so you just need to copy the same pattern a few times to create the whole diagram.
6. Add text in cells as comments, and change cell size if needed. Now I'm finished:
7. If you need to show the exact slope of rising/falling edge of a signal, you can merge some vertical cells and use a diagonal line.

Advantages

• No additional software is needed to create or view the diagram. I believe everyone has Excel, or something equivalent such as Open Office Calc or Google Spreadsheets(which don't support drawing borders at the moment).
• Easier and quicker comparing with general purpose drawers such as MS Paint.
• Text-based(or rather vector-based) document type has smaller file size than pictures, especially when the diagram is very big.
  

Problems

• Won't show up if directly pasted to Word or some online html editors(the blogger editor, for example). They seems to have different understandings about styles of form cell borders with Excel. My current workaround is to printscreen to a picture or print to a PDF(with PDFCreator).
  

Alternative solutions

• General Drawers, such as MS Paint, GIMP, Inkscape.
  
• General Diagram Editors, such as Dia, Microsoft Visio, Smart Draw
  
• SynaptiCAD Timing Diagram Editor, professional commercial software, trail version is available.
  

Inside Fulong (Finished)

----
Removing the cover
----
Under the cover
----
The white pieces are silicone grease
----
The Loongson chip, at last.
----
3 chips under the cover
----
FPGA is used as the North Bridge.

----
ATI Graphix module with memory.
----
Some other pictures
----


# The End

Inside Fulong Miniature Computer

Overview:

----
2.5 inch hard disk on the other side.
mounted firmly.
----
Power Area
----
256M DDR
----
10/100M Ethernet Controller: Realtek RTL8139
----
South Bridge VIA VT82C686B
----
... and more

Computer Powered by Chinese Processor

The Loongson Series (also known as Godson, Dragon Chip) are the first general processors *designed* by China. Based on Loongson-2E, Lemote(www.lemote.com) has designed a Mini-PC named "Fulong Miniature Computer". The first trail production amount is 1000, I'm very lucky to have one of them.

I'll write my experience about it here in the following days.

The package:

----
The case fingerprint easily and looks dirty.----
Accessories: User Manual, Debian CD, and a 512M UDISK.
----

Front Panel: USBx4, MIC, earphone, Aux?, IR control, hdd & power indicator, reset & power button.
----
Back Panel: PS2 for keyboard, Ethernet RJ-45, VGA, S-VIDEO, RS232, DC12V power in.
----
No more ports on other sides.

----
I'm opening it. :)
----
The empty case:
----
The mainboard:


To be continued....