Eagle 4.11 = POS

[Mike Engelhardt]

Alexs,

...The parts editor crashing bug is consistent and
reproduceable. If the Linux version is so stable,
why is the demo so unstable?

Why do people post this instead of reporting it?

LT-SPICE is well-written and evolving program, with a highly
motivated, involved and responsive sole (apparently) author.
From what I can tell the prog keeps pace with user input,
and is going to make the longstanding SPICE vendors very
uncomfortable very soon.

I'm flattered that you suggest LTspice is the work of one
person, but that's not the case. It's a big project that has
involves many people. But, yes, it is coordinated by my own
vision.

Eagle and its authors, OTOH, seem stuck in the amber of their
snotty attitude about what's best for its users, and refuse to
acknowledge public criticisms or even display curiosity about
Eagle's problems.

Refuse to acknowledge public criticisms? Well, there's a choice
to made for the EDA outfit. Not every software development
concern is in a position to entertain public forum input and
criticism. It's not just that you have to be certain that
the product can stand up to any comparison with competitive
tools, it's also often more fruitful to focus on friendly-natured
feedback because the information comes from a source that's
interested in the improvement of the program, not just someone
with some potentially misguided resentment. It's just the
tendency to focus on potential revenue sources, not people who
want to complain.

If the answer is "go run Linux", then that does not make one
all warm and fuzzy about their code base's stability, or about
the ability of their programmers (to say nothing of their
superiority complex).

I'd take this "go run Linux" with grain of salt. The nature and
history of this Usenet media makes gravitation to Linux common.
Try to decouple the OS from the CAD tool wherever possible to
get the clearest view of the CAD tool.

Besides, there are other players on the low-end ECAD field
who probably don't need my help in beta-testing their product.

Good luck with that. My own view is that this type of
application software development relies on user feedback. To
me it seems inescapable considering the nature of the
technology and business climate.

--Mike.

 

[JeffM]

My wife can use Eagle to help me capture schematics, route boards,
and even make library packages.
Chris Carlen

Does she have a single sister?

 

[Chris Carlen]

alexs wrote:

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 09:55:37 -0800, Chris Carlen <crcarle@BOGUS.sandia.gov> wrote:


Brick wall? My wife can use Eagle to help me capture schematics, route
boards, and even make library packages. She has no CAD experience or
electronics background.


Oh, gee, even your wife can use it?

Uhm, yes, that's what I said. And it doesn't crash for her either.

As for your stability problems, like I said before, the program runs for
days on end without problems on my Linux workstations. I suggest you
try at least an NT class Windows, if you aren't amenable to the use of
Linux.


The parts editor crashing bug is consistent and reproduceable. If the
Linux version is so stable, why is the demo so unstable?

Consistent and reproducable on what? W98? Then say so and report it to
Cadsoft as well as consulting with other users before bitching all over
the place. If after some effort, nobody helps or acknowledges the
problem, well then you still have the responsibility of trying it on
another machine or OS before you reach harsh conclusions.


Good day!


--
_____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
crobc@earthlink.net
Suse 8.1 Linux 2.4.19

 

[Chris Carlen]

JeffM wrote:

My wife can use Eagle to help me capture schematics, route boards,
and even make library packages.
Chris Carlen


Does she have a single sister?

:-D


--
_____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
crobc@earthlink.net
Suse 8.1 Linux 2.4.19

 

[Chris Carlen]

Mike Engelhardt wrote:

Alexs,
alexs@seanet.com wrote:
Eagle and its authors, OTOH, seem stuck in the amber of their
snotty attitude about what's best for its users, and refuse to
acknowledge public criticisms or even display curiosity about
Eagle's problems.


Refuse to acknowledge public criticisms? Well, there's a choice
to made for the EDA outfit. Not every software development
concern is in a position to entertain public forum input and
criticism. It's not just that you have to be certain that
the product can stand up to any comparison with competitive
tools, it's also often more fruitful to focus on friendly-natured
feedback because the information comes from a source that's
interested in the improvement of the program, not just someone
with some potentially misguided resentment. It's just the
tendency to focus on potential revenue sources, not people who
want to complain.

Mike, this guy has not even attempted to use the resources that are
available to deal with problems with Eagle. There is a newsserver
hosted by Cadsoft, on which guess what? Not a single post by alexs. On
that newserver the developers of Eagle as well as very experienced users
regularly assist users directly. If he had spent even a few minutes of
effort to track down the support resources available to Eagle users, he
might have found out about that.

This guy just wants to whine and badmouth a program with which he is
having trouble, rather than learn how to use the program or investigate
whether the cause might be his crappy computer. I hope he dumps Eagle
ASAP, so I don't have to hear his whining anymore.



--
_____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
crobc@earthlink.net
Suse 8.1 Linux 2.4.19

 

[Paul Rako]

[on Orcad]

My recollection, and I admit it is faded, is that they were steadfast in
their belief that their own interface was best, and they were going to
stick with DOS, and then they got a new President, and a windows version
emerged.

-Chuck

Interesting to see a little insider info on a tragic story. I have
heard the orginal Orcad schematic was done by that first president.
He actully wrote stuff so tight it ran well on an XT. That's why the
libraries were limited to 64kB. So it would fit into one "data"
segment. I do remember Orcad coming out with a layout program that
was so lame it hurt. They never understood "back annotation". But
Pads did. Only Pads schematic capture was a joke. So a lot of people
did the schematics in Orcad and the layout in Pads. (The crusty ones
never left pCad.) So Orcad bought the Masstech router and integrated
it (as much as one can do that). I am using the 9.2 windows version
and it is arcane and goofy and a baroque-- but it will do everything I
need it to do and I have already paid all the pain and suffering.

Then Orcad bought PSpice. I was at a conference with a PSpice guy and
he said it was a good deal. Orcad had the schematic capture down and
that would let the PSpice guys concentrate on convergence and spice
issues.

Then Cadence bought the whole mess and..... nothing for what? two
years???!!!! Now it looks like the Indian programmers have completely
re-written the codebase. This may be good because:

1) Indian programmers are generally competent.
2) The code should show up in other products since competent
programmers often "share" code. (;^o)-

Looking at the bug fixes for release 10 you can see that this a a
whole new codebase. I would be pissed, but in a truly great move it
looks like Cadence kept the file formats the same-- rev 9 programs can
interoperate with rev 10 (at least I hope this is the case-- I would
never buy 10.0 unless my 9.2 tool could open it and fix the mess.) I
sure hope Orcad gets some wind back in it's sails.

Paul

 

[Boris Mohar]

On 30 Nov 2003 00:54:43 -0800, winopaul@yahoo.com (Paul Rako) wrote:

Then Cadence bought the whole mess and..... nothing for what? two
years???!!!! Now it looks like the Indian programmers have completely
re-written the codebase. This may be good because:

1) Indian programmers are generally competent.

If they (Indian programmers) wrote 9.2 and subsequently 9.23 than don't hold you
breath. There are some ugly bugs in 9.23

Block drag behaves in idiotic manner. Wires do not stay orthogonal. I was told
by Cadence that this is how it is supposed to be. If anyone wishes, I have a
sample DSN file demonstrating the problem.

2) The code should show up in other products since competent
programmers often "share" code. (;^o)-

Lazy programmers also "share" code and the inherent bugs.

Looking at the bug fixes for release 10 you can see that this a a
whole new codebase. I would be pissed, but in a truly great move it
looks like Cadence kept the file formats the same-- rev 9 programs can
interoperate with rev 10 (at least I hope this is the case-- I would
never buy 10.0 unless my 9.2 tool could open it and fix the mess.) I
sure hope Orcad gets some wind back in it's sails.

Paul

I have rel. 10 CD sitting on my desk Cannot install it because I run Win98
which Cadence no longer supports. I would like to hear from someone who has
rel. 10 running. Schematic capture is the only one that I am interested in.



Regards,

Boris Mohar
Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs
Aurora, Ontario

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 20:07:23 -0500, Boris Mohar <borism@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

[snip]

I have rel. 10 CD sitting on my desk Cannot install it because I run Win98
which Cadence no longer supports. I would like to hear from someone who has
rel. 10 running. Schematic capture is the only one that I am interested in.



Regards,

Boris Mohar
Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs
Aurora, Ontario

Bitch to EMA-EDA (which I assume you now relegated to).

PSpice *Schematics* doesn't have the problem.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Boris Mohar wrote:

On 30 Nov 2003 00:54:43 -0800, winopaul@yahoo.com (Paul Rako) wrote:


Looking at the bug fixes for release 10 you can see that this a a
whole new codebase. I would be pissed, but in a truly great move it
looks like Cadence kept the file formats the same-- rev 9 programs
can interoperate with rev 10 (at least I hope this is the case-- I
would never buy 10.0 unless my 9.2 tool could open it and fix the
mess.) I sure hope Orcad gets some wind back in it's sails.

Paul

I have rel. 10 CD sitting on my desk Cannot install it because I run
Win98 which Cadence no longer supports.

This is a big mistake. Anything below NT/XP should be immediately
scrapped.

The reality is that OS's below that are not. For example, the *entire*
GUI resources data structures are limited to 64K, irrespective of the
fact that you may have 1G of memory. You will always have to reboot due
to memory leaks. Just noting that writing to a:\ drive locks out the
whole system should be enough to tell you what the issues are. XP is
about 2 orders of magnitude more stable.

You need accept facts and move on.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/index.html

"Understanding" itself requires consciousness,
therefore consciousness cannot be "understood"
without referring to itself for the explanation,
therefore the "hard problem" of consciousness,
is intrinsically unsolvable as it is self referral.

 

[Boris Mohar]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 19:00:05 -0700, Jim Thompson <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 20:07:23 -0500, Boris Mohar <borism@sympatico.ca
wrote:

[snip]
I have rel. 10 CD sitting on my desk Cannot install it because I run Win98
which Cadence no longer supports. I would like to hear from someone who has
rel. 10 running. Schematic capture is the only one that I am interested in.



Regards,

Boris Mohar
Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs
Aurora, Ontario



Bitch to EMA-EDA (which I assume you now relegated to).

I did. I wanted to go over there and try out rel 10. Can you believe the they
do not even have an installed version? They are just a sales depot.

PSpice *Schematics* doesn't have the problem.

Can it compile EDIF netlist? I need that format because i use PCB386+ which
for some of you is a dinosaur but it can handle large multi layer boards very
efficiently.

Regards,

Boris Mohar

Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs
Aurora, Ontario

 

[Boris Mohar]

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 07:35:43 -0000, "Kevin Aylward"
<kevindotaylwardEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:

Boris Mohar wrote:
On 30 Nov 2003 00:54:43 -0800, winopaul@yahoo.com (Paul Rako) wrote:


Looking at the bug fixes for release 10 you can see that this a a
whole new codebase. I would be pissed, but in a truly great move it
looks like Cadence kept the file formats the same-- rev 9 programs
can interoperate with rev 10 (at least I hope this is the case-- I
would never buy 10.0 unless my 9.2 tool could open it and fix the
mess.) I sure hope Orcad gets some wind back in it's sails.

Paul

I have rel. 10 CD sitting on my desk Cannot install it because I run
Win98 which Cadence no longer supports.

This is a big mistake. Anything below NT/XP should be immediately
scrapped.

The reality is that OS's below that are not. For example, the *entire*
GUI resources data structures are limited to 64K, irrespective of the
fact that you may have 1G of memory. You will always have to reboot due
to memory leaks. Just noting that writing to a:\ drive locks out the
whole system should be enough to tell you what the issues are. XP is
about 2 orders of magnitude more stable.

You need accept facts and move on.

Can XP run a DOS program? For board layout I am using Orcad PCB386+. This
program suffered premature death with the onset of windows but is very capable
of handling complex boards. The pad array generator is fully capable of making
modern packages using complex padstack. For repetitive work there is macro
support. The guy who wrote the code has a PhD in electrical eng. See:
http://www.snapnames.com/corporate_execteam_nelson.html

Since I have not encountered any serious limitations with this program I would
like to continue using it but I would like to do this on a fastest machine
available. The speed is important to me because I often have to carve through
copper pour which is computationally taxing. I do not know if the bigger bottle
neck is the CPU or the video board. What home would you suggest for this devil
that I know.

--

Boris Mohar

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Boris Mohar wrote:

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 07:35:43 -0000, "Kevin Aylward"
kevindotaylwardEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:

Boris Mohar wrote:
On 30 Nov 2003 00:54:43 -0800, winopaul@yahoo.com (Paul Rako) wrote:


Looking at the bug fixes for release 10 you can see that this a a
whole new codebase. I would be pissed, but in a truly great move
it looks like Cadence kept the file formats the same-- rev 9
programs can interoperate with rev 10 (at least I hope this is the
case-- I would never buy 10.0 unless my 9.2 tool could open it and
fix the mess.) I sure hope Orcad gets some wind back in it's
sails.

Paul

I have rel. 10 CD sitting on my desk Cannot install it because I
run Win98 which Cadence no longer supports.

This is a big mistake. Anything below NT/XP should be immediately
scrapped.

The reality is that OS's below that are not. For example, the
*entire* GUI resources data structures are limited to 64K,
irrespective of the fact that you may have 1G of memory. You will
always have to reboot due to memory leaks. Just noting that writing
to a:\ drive locks out the whole system should be enough to tell you
what the issues are. XP is about 2 orders of magnitude more stable.

You need accept facts and move on.

Can XP run a DOS program?

In general, yes.

For board layout I am using Orcad PCB386+.
This program suffered premature death with the onset of windows but
is very capable of handling complex boards.

Dont know if this will run or not. You will need to try it.



Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/index.html

"Understanding" itself requires consciousness,
therefore consciousness cannot be "understood"
without referring to itself for the explanation,
therefore the "hard problem" of consciousness,
is intrinsically unsolvable as it is self referral.

 

[Ian]

Ned

Out of interest, what is the highest display resolution are you able to use
with your SDT386?

I have SDTIII v3.22, and love it, it's the only DOS programme I use as I
have not found a windows capture that comes anywhere near it.

Is SDT386 a later version and if so do you know where can I get a copy?

Ian Phillips

|> Dont know if this will run or not. You will need to try it.

I do not have PCB386+ but I do run SDT386+ under Win2K (under VMware,
under Linux) without any problems. This surprised me as the SDT
series uses the Phar Lap memory extender; seems to be ok. Some old
projects were done with SDT and still require support.

--
NOTE: to reply, remove all punctuation from email name field

Ned Forrester n_f_orrester@whoi.edu 508-289-2226
Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Dept.
Oceanographic Systems Lab http://adcp.whoi.edu/
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA

 

[Ned Forrester]

In article <nXHyb.727$4P5.273@newsfep3-gui.server.ntli.net>,
"Kevin Aylward" <kevindotaylwardEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> writes:
|> Boris Mohar wrote:
|> > On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 07:35:43 -0000, "Kevin Aylward"
|> > <kevindotaylwardEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:
|> >>> I have rel. 10 CD sitting on my desk Cannot install it because I
|> >>> run Win98 which Cadence no longer supports.
|> >>
|> >> This is a big mistake. Anything below NT/XP should be immediately
|> >> scrapped.
|> >>
[snip]
|> >>
|> >> You need accept facts and move on.
|> >
|> > Can XP run a DOS program?
|>
|> In general, yes.
|>
|> > For board layout I am using Orcad PCB386+.
|> > This program suffered premature death with the onset of windows but
|> > is very capable of handling complex boards.
|>
|> Dont know if this will run or not. You will need to try it.

I do not have PCB386+ but I do run SDT386+ under Win2K (under VMware,
under Linux) without any problems. This surprised me as the SDT
series uses the Phar Lap memory extender; seems to be ok. Some old
projects were done with SDT and still require support.

--
NOTE: to reply, remove all punctuation from email name field

Ned Forrester n_f_orrester@whoi.edu 508-289-2226
Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Dept.
Oceanographic Systems Lab http://adcp.whoi.edu/
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA

 

[qrk]

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 08:10:19 -0500, Boris Mohar <borism@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
[lots of snippage]

Can XP run a DOS program? For board layout I am using Orcad PCB386+.

NT4, Win2k, and XP have pretty good DOS support. The biggest problem
is video driver support.

I just setup Orcad SDT386+ on an XP laptop a month ago. Seems to work
just fine. I had to use the 640x480 Vesa driver for the XP machine. I
normally run SDT386+ on Win2k using the 800x600 Vesa driver and a
GeForce2 video board. I've also seen GeForce3 video boards work with
SDT. Don't know about PCB386, but I would assume that the video
drivers are the same as the SDT386 drivers.

Mark

 

[Boris Mohar]

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 18:11:44 -0800, qrk <mark@reson.DELETE.ME.com> wrote:

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 08:10:19 -0500, Boris Mohar <borism@sympatico.ca
wrote:
[lots of snippage]
Can XP run a DOS program? For board layout I am using Orcad PCB386+.

NT4, Win2k, and XP have pretty good DOS support. The biggest problem
is video driver support.

I just setup Orcad SDT386+ on an XP laptop a month ago. Seems to work
just fine. I had to use the 640x480 Vesa driver for the XP machine. I
normally run SDT386+ on Win2k using the 800x600 Vesa driver and a
GeForce2 video board. I've also seen GeForce3 video boards work with
SDT. Don't know about PCB386, but I would assume that the video
drivers are the same as the SDT386 drivers.

Mark

Thanks. Same drivers for PCB 386+. I use 640x480 IBM PS2 VGA mainly because
on Win 98 800x600 Vesa does not let me Alt-Tab between the apps.

--

Boris Mohar

 

[alexs]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 08:48:56 -0800, in sci.electronics.cad some moron wrote:

Mike, this guy has not even attempted to use the resources that are
available to deal with problems with Eagle. There is a newsserver
hosted by Cadsoft, on which guess what? Not a single post by alexs. On
that newserver the developers of Eagle as well as very experienced users
regularly assist users directly. If he had spent even a few minutes of
effort to track down the support resources available to Eagle users, he
might have found out about that.

Buggy is buggy. Life is too short to chase around in ten different
"resources" to find workarounds for unstable code. Believe it or
not, ExpressPCB works very nicely, and has some of the look & feel
of the old Protel Autotrax -- like in-place symbol and footprint
construction without double-clutching a crashing parts editor.

They also respond positively to suggestions about features -- unlike
the snotty Krauts at Cadsoft and their sycophants in s.e.c

 

[Ned Forrester]

In article <bqg8oe$rol$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
"Ian" <lightdept@hotmail.co.uk> writes:
|> Ned
|>
|> Out of interest, what is the highest display resolution are you able to use
|> with your SDT386?
|>
|> I have SDTIII v3.22, and love it, it's the only DOS programme I use as I
|> have not found a windows capture that comes anywhere near it.
|>
|> Is SDT386 a later version and if so do you know where can I get a copy?
|>
|> Ian Phillips
|>
|>
|> > |> Dont know if this will run or not. You will need to try it.
|> >
|> > I do not have PCB386+ but I do run SDT386+ under Win2K (under VMware,
|> > under Linux) without any problems. This surprised me as the SDT
|> > series uses the Phar Lap memory extender; seems to be ok. Some old
|> > projects were done with SDT and still require support.

I am reduced to the VGA640.DRV driver when running under Win2K on
VMWare because of the lack of driver support for the emulated video
hardware. I can operate with the V7800600.DRV driver (800x600) when I
use SunPC on my old Sun SparcStation. For the limited work I do on
SDT now, I don't mind the low resolution. I use an old version of
Capture CIS (7.2) for all new work.

I don't remember what SDTIII is. The version of SDT386+ that I am
running is 1.21. This is 32 bit Orcad, and I am fairly sure is it
quite different from what you have. I think this was close to the end
of the line before they started Capture. I'm sure I will be corrected
if I am wrong about that. No idea where you could get a copy; I still
use mine.

--
NOTE: to reply, remove all punctuation from email name field

Ned Forrester n_f_orrester@whoi.edu 508-289-2226
Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Dept.
Oceanographic Systems Lab http://adcp.whoi.edu/
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA