How to kill ORCAD 10.5 Capture in three operations

[Joel Kolstad]

We've just upgraded from ORCAD 9.2 to ORCAD 10.5 and, while I'm finding some
improvements I like, I'm always dismayed when I can manage to crash a new
application within 5 minutes of use. Has anyone else observed this?

Perform the following (Windows XP SP2, Pentium IV PC):

1) Start ORCAD 10.5 Capture
2) Hit F1 for help
3) Click on the "Index" table in the help window

Crash!!!!! (You're given a chance to save your work but then ORCAD is
unceremoniously shutdown.)

I've observed this on my own system and that of a co-worker. I wouldn't be
surprised if this is due to ORCAD's installation routine overwriting some DLL
that it shouldn't be... in ORCAD 9.2, after installation Microsoft's MSDN
would never work and we eventually traced the problem to the installation
program registering an old version of hhctrl.ocx (without bothering to check
if the already installed version was newer) :-( .

I'll shortly report this to Cadence but my experience is that results often
happen a lot faster on Usenet...

---Joel Kolstad

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:39:20 -0700, "Joel Kolstad"
<JKolstad71HatesSpam@yahoo.com> wrote:

We've just upgraded from ORCAD 9.2 to ORCAD 10.5 and, while I'm finding some
improvements I like, I'm always dismayed when I can manage to crash a new
application within 5 minutes of use. Has anyone else observed this?

Perform the following (Windows XP SP2, Pentium IV PC):

1) Start ORCAD 10.5 Capture
2) Hit F1 for help
3) Click on the "Index" table in the help window

Crash!!!!! (You're given a chance to save your work but then ORCAD is
unceremoniously shutdown.)

I've observed this on my own system and that of a co-worker. I wouldn't be
surprised if this is due to ORCAD's installation routine overwriting some DLL
that it shouldn't be... in ORCAD 9.2, after installation Microsoft's MSDN
would never work and we eventually traced the problem to the installation
program registering an old version of hhctrl.ocx (without bothering to check
if the already installed version was newer) :-( .

I'll shortly report this to Cadence but my experience is that results often
happen a lot faster on Usenet...

---Joel Kolstad

He who uses Capture deserves it ;-)

...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.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message
news:hic2m1tbqloiejfb2bbhpabcshilp5nh66@4ax.com...

He who uses Capture deserves it ;-)

Probably so! I'm constantly amazed just how BAD things have to be to get
companies to switch products, however -- them seem to seroiusly overestimate
the cost of changing to a better product vs. the ongoing cost of using a
mediocre product!

One of these days you should try out SIMetrix SPICE (either standalone with
their own schematic capture front-end or embedded within Pulsonix or
EasyPC)... you might like it!

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 13:17:00 -0700, "Joel Kolstad"
<JKolstad71HatesSpam@yahoo.com> wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message
news:hic2m1tbqloiejfb2bbhpabcshilp5nh66@4ax.com...
He who uses Capture deserves it ;-)

Probably so! I'm constantly amazed just how BAD things have to be to get
companies to switch products, however -- them seem to seroiusly overestimate
the cost of changing to a better product vs. the ongoing cost of using a
mediocre product!

One of these days you should try out SIMetrix SPICE (either standalone with
their own schematic capture front-end or embedded within Pulsonix or
EasyPC)... you might like it!

I still use the old original MicroSim Schematics... works great.

...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.

 

[nyffeler]

In article <11m2bagnlv1f27b@corp.supernews.com>, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesSpam@yahoo.com> wrote:

We've just upgraded from ORCAD 9.2 to ORCAD 10.5 and, while I'm finding some
improvements I like, I'm always dismayed when I can manage to crash a new
application within 5 minutes of use. Has anyone else observed this?

Perform the following (Windows XP SP2, Pentium IV PC):

1) Start ORCAD 10.5 Capture
2) Hit F1 for help
3) Click on the "Index" table in the help window

Crash!!!!! (You're given a chance to save your work but then ORCAD is
unceremoniously shutdown.)

I've observed this on my own system and that of a co-worker. I wouldn't be
surprised if this is due to ORCAD's installation routine overwriting some DLL
that it shouldn't be... in ORCAD 9.2, after installation Microsoft's MSDN
would never work and we eventually traced the problem to the installation
program registering an old version of hhctrl.ocx (without bothering to check
if the already installed version was newer) :-( .

I'll shortly report this to Cadence but my experience is that results often
happen a lot faster on Usenet...

---Joel Kolstad

Joel,
I did the three steps without crashing.
Bevor I installed OrCad 10.5, I removed the old Version (10.3) and did a
registry cleaning.

OK I don't like OrCad very much, but the others I had a look at didn't
convince me either. The easiest to work with was Wintek's HiWire II, but this
was in an other century.

 

[Fred Bartoli]

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> a écrit dans le message de
news:hic2m1tbqloiejfb2bbhpabcshilp5nh66@4ax.com...

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:39:20 -0700, "Joel Kolstad"
JKolstad71HatesSpam@yahoo.com> wrote:

We've just upgraded from ORCAD 9.2 to ORCAD 10.5 and, while I'm finding
some
improvements I like, I'm always dismayed when I can manage to crash a new
application within 5 minutes of use. Has anyone else observed this?

Perform the following (Windows XP SP2, Pentium IV PC):

1) Start ORCAD 10.5 Capture
2) Hit F1 for help
3) Click on the "Index" table in the help window

Crash!!!!! (You're given a chance to save your work but then ORCAD is
unceremoniously shutdown.)

I've observed this on my own system and that of a co-worker. I wouldn't
be
surprised if this is due to ORCAD's installation routine overwriting some
DLL
that it shouldn't be... in ORCAD 9.2, after installation Microsoft's MSDN
would never work and we eventually traced the problem to the installation
program registering an old version of hhctrl.ocx (without bothering to
check
if the already installed version was newer) :-( .

I'll shortly report this to Cadence but my experience is that results
often
happen a lot faster on Usenet...

---Joel Kolstad



He who uses Capture deserves it ;-)

Agree for simulation. It has nothing to do there.
But I use it for PCB schematics entry since many years with almost no pb. At
least not more than with other packages.

Apart some limitations, I've always wondered why everybody's bitching about
it.


--
Thanks,
Fred.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

"Fred Bartoli" <fred._canxxxel_this_bartoli@RemoveThatAlso_free.fr_AndThisToo>
wrote in message news:43622406$0$15268$636a15ce@news.free.fr...

Apart some limitations, I've always wondered why everybody's bitching about
it.

Capture 10.5 has some noticeable improvements over 9.2. IMO, the reason a
bunch of people (including me) bitch about it is because they've used other
tools that are simply more "expert friendly." That is, once you've gotten
used to work with the tool on a regular basis, are you able to become more
productive by being able to customize the tool to work exactly the way you
think? Capture doesn't do so well in this respect. Witness:

Symbol Editing:

Tab+click works to select one of multiple overlapping objects, but this
doesn't work in conjunction with multiple select (ctrl-click).
For very small objects, trying to click and drag to move the object
always seems to try to resize the object instead.
Maximum zoom level is artifically low (i.e., you can't take a 0.1" wide
line and make it occupy half the screen)
One can't set the pick radius for selection!

Pins have to be placed strictly around a bounding box perimeter rather
than just letting you place pins wherever you like.
Pin styles are limited (e.g., no indepedent selection of pin length)

Can't turn off the display of their names on a pin-by-pin basis
The same line style applied to different objects is not actually the
same width


General:

No ability to change or add keyboard mappings
No macro that performs some desired actions, i.e., one to merely _start_
commands such as "Zoom Area" (using ZoomArea in a macro requires specifying
the exact coordinates of the area to zoom).
Rotate, mirror, and similar commands don't work while pasting a copied
object

When drawing a polyline, there's no way to delete just the last segment
"Properties" command doesn't work while drawing some objects (e.g.,
boxes or circles or lines), nor immediately after placement... yet it does
work with others (e.g., while placing pins)!

Line styles are limited (e.g., no independent selection of line width,
no lines with built-in arrows)
There's no area DE-select option.
Toggling from area select of 'everything TOUCHING the selection box' to
'everything strictly INSIDE the box' can't be done from keyboard.

When you click on a wire, there's no display in, e.g., the status line
to tell you the net's name. (Must specifically ask for properties)
A bus can only contain an array of a single net name, e.g., DATA[0:7] --
very limiting.


These are all features that many other programs have that ORCAD doesn't.
Here's a few desirable features that, while less common in general and hence
not really what I'd consider "expected" these days, do exist in other packages
and would be nice additions to ORCAD:

Tabbed window view

Multiple physical pins on part (e.g., all Gnds on an FPGA) can be
represented by one symbol pin
Multiple physical parks can be represented by one symbol (e.g., 24
decoupling capacitors)
Automatically uses different grids for different objects (e.g.,
components and wires)

Can select items within an arbitrarily drawn outline


I'm not suggesting that "ORCAD sucks"; it is a powerful tool that doesn't have
any truly "severe" limitations. The database integration is also a notably
good feature that many other tools lack or don't perform nearly as well. I'm
mainly disappointed to see the lack of new development being put into Capture
these days, especially when you look at the not-at-all cheap price tag that
Cadence gets for the thing.

---Joel

 

[Joel Kolstad]

I did the three steps without crashing.
Bevor I installed OrCad 10.5, I removed the old Version (10.3) and did a
registry cleaning.

Thanks, that's what I "wanted" to hear -- it must be an incompatibility
between ORCAD and something else we all seem to have installed on our systems.