That changed when Professor David A. Hodges left Bell Labs to join the faculty. Software development has become so sophisticated now that putting a model into a simulator takes months, but back then it only took a weekend. The user interface never was particularly sophisticated, on purpose. The most important consideration was that the program had to be bulletproof. We ran an entire class of jobs in one batch run at night, and it was very important that job 4 not kill the program, thus requiring resubmittal of all the other jobs.
Language is important too, especially in a place as diverse as a university.
That changed real quick one night when an entire class with a project due the next day descended on me, one at a time, demanding to know the meaning of zilch. Amazing how graduate students spend their time. The rigor of doctoral research enabled me to really pursue the algorithms of circuit simulation. It also allowed me the privilege of having Ellis Cohen as a roommate. Ellis was much more computer oriented, and understood data structures, memory management, and program architecture much better than I did.