PCB Software

[Don Prescott]

Re the freepcb software. Haven't tried it, but this kinda homegrown
"I was dissatisfied with the low-cost products on the market and
decided to write my own - and here it is free" is great if you're a
member of the beard and sandals brigade who like playing with these
raw, unsupported, buggy, pieces of software developed by one man bands
in there dens to amuse themselves in their retirements.

This is AutoTRAX revisited, which after 3 years still at alpha
level.....
(the new AutoTRAX, NOT the old Protel product).

In short, probably OK if you want to while away the hours playing with
a hobbyist's toolset. Useless if you're trying to design a real
product that's gotta go out the door on time......

Prescott

 

[DJ Delorie]

DMBPrescott@aol.com (Don Prescott) writes:

Re the freepcb software. Haven't tried it, but this kinda homegrown
"I was dissatisfied with the low-cost products on the market and
decided to write my own - and here it is free" is great if you're a
member of the beard and sandals brigade who like playing with these
raw, unsupported, buggy, pieces of software developed by one man bands
in there dens to amuse themselves in their retirements.

You sound opinionated ;-)

I don't know about freepcb, but PCB (of gEDA) is developed by three of
us who USE it. Dan, at least, uses it for his job, and I use it for
my own stuff (I used to design PC motherboards, now I work on gcc).
It's well supported by us, not very buggy (we're fixing them as fast
as we can , and we know it can do complex boards because we've done
them.

And my wife won't let me grow a beard anyway.

 

[Mac]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:45:28 -0500, DJ Delorie wrote:

[snip]

I don't know about freepcb, but PCB (of gEDA) is developed by three of
us who USE it. Dan, at least, uses it for his job, and I use it for my
own stuff (I used to design PC motherboards, now I work on gcc). It's
well supported by us, not very buggy (we're fixing them as fast as we
can , and we know it can do complex boards because we've done them.

And my wife won't let me grow a beard anyway.

Thanks for all your work. I am starting to use PCB now, and have used
djgpp in the past.

--Mac

 

Hmm...I guess I have to side with the "beard and sandals brigade",
though I was entertained by the pre-emptive cheap shot I think the
Linux analogy was spot-on, Stuart.

What's funny about this is, my application is a commercial application
- not a hobby. I like the open source tool route because if a company
stops supporting their tool, I can keep working with it if I have the
source.

We have built several boards already with an open source EDA tool
chain. I have no complaints, since as Stuart points out, I was able to
identify any shortcomings in the ascii files before they showed up on
the boards. This is more than I can say for the last boards we built
with the "big guns of EDA" tool flows. The source of the errors was
the same - human error - but the ability to locate and correct them was
very, very different.

Chris

 

Hmm...I guess I have to side with the "beard and sandals brigade",
though I was entertained by the pre-emptive cheap shot I think the
Linux analogy was spot-on, Stuart.

What's funny about this is, my application is a commercial application
- not a hobby. I like the open source tool route because if a company
stops supporting their tool, I can keep working with it if I have the
source.

We have built several boards already with an open source EDA tool
chain. I have no complaints, since as Stuart points out, I was able to
identify any shortcomings in the ascii files before they showed up on
the boards. This is more than I can say for the last boards we built
with the "big guns of EDA" tool flows. The source of the errors was
the same - human error - but the ability to locate and correct them was
very, very different.

Chris

 

[Jim Thompson]

On 13 Dec 2004 08:02:25 -0800, info@bostonsemiconductor.com wrote:

Hmm...I guess I have to side with the "beard and sandals brigade",
though I was entertained by the pre-emptive cheap shot I think the
Linux analogy was spot-on, Stuart.

[snip]
Chris

Chris, You have a posting problem... two copies of this post... 7
seconds apart.

...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.

 

Grr...google groups...

 

[Chaos Master]

El Stuart Brorson wrote:

* Finally, many projects are quite mature & very usable for low and
mid-level designs. The gEDA stuff -- schematic capture & netlisting
-- is simply great! The various open-source spices (ngspice,
tclspice) are very usable, albeit CLI driven. Icarus Verilog is
mature, and commonly used in industry. And PCB, well, its user
interface takes some getting used to, but it does the job, and I
correspond with folks who have done 8 layer boards & beyond with it.

IMHO, the problem of gEDA is that it doesn't have a very extensive and
*checked for accuracy* (even if some faults escape, EAGLE has let some
escape in libraries) components library (like EAGLE, for instance, has)

[]s
--
Chaos MasterŽ, posting from Canoas, Brazil - 29.55° S / 51.11° W (GMT -2
(BRST) / GMT -3 (BRT))

"Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix. I don't
think that this is a coincidence." -- Anonymous

 

[DJ Delorie]

Chaos Master <e-mail@is.INVALID> writes:

(like EAGLE, for instance, has)

The first symbol I tried to use in the EAGLE demo had the wrong
spacing. That's when I switched to PCB, because I knew I could make
my own footprints accurately.

 

[Stuart Brorson]

Don Prescott <DMBPrescott@aol.com> wrote:
: Re the freepcb software. Haven't tried it, but this kinda homegrown
: "I was dissatisfied with the low-cost products on the market and
: decided to write my own - and here it is free" is great if you're a
: member of the beard and sandals brigade who like playing with these
: raw, unsupported, buggy, pieces of software developed by one man bands
: in there dens to amuse themselves in their retirements.

*Chortle*

That's what folks said about Linux about five years ago. Those that
said it look like backward-looking trogledytes now.

The advantages of free/open-source tools are these:

* Full versions usually downloadable for free. No cripple or
nagware. Just download and start designing.

* Documented ASCII file formats. The vendor isn't trying to lock you
in to his tool set by sticking you with a proprietary binary format.
(Express PCB is a particularly nasty example of this, but Protel &
Orcad do it too). Therefore, you have complete control over your
design. If a component becomes displaced waaaay off screen, you can
open up your design with a text editor, find the component, and fix
the problem.

* Protection for legacy designs. At work I have inherited a
CadStar design done back in the middle 1990s. Unfortunately, the
CadStar install media I have is old & worn out, and doesn't work with
Windows XP wayway. I have no budget to spend thousands of $$$ to buy
a modern seat of CadStar just to open up one stinking PCB. How do I
modify/update/fix a design captured in an obsolete & unsupported tool?
Basically, I'm screwed. Thanks, Zuken! Thanks, Microsoft!

With free/open-source EDA tools, legacy support is typically built
into the tool. The developers don't have the motivation to keep users
on the upgrade-for-cash treadmill, so they don't play these kinds of
games. Also, if the tool has changed too much to read an old design,
you can find an old version of the tool, freely download it, and then
edit your old design happily.

* You get the code. Although most people don't want to hack, there
are many designers out there who know enough about software
developement that they feel comfortable about making customizations
and improvements to the open-source codebase. They do this because it
gives them a design advantage -- they can automate or control tasks
which the rest of use have to carfully click through repeatedly. I
communicate with several of them, and more are joining the gEDA
project regularly. You just can't do this with closed-source,
proprietary software.

* Finally, many projects are quite mature & very usable for low and
mid-level designs. The gEDA stuff -- schematic capture & netlisting
-- is simply great! The various open-source spices (ngspice,
tclspice) are very usable, albeit CLI driven. Icarus Verilog is
mature, and commonly used in industry. And PCB, well, its user
interface takes some getting used to, but it does the job, and I
correspond with folks who have done 8 layer boards & beyond with it.

[. . . snip . . .]

: In short, probably OK if you want to while away the hours playing with
: a hobbyist's toolset. Useless if you're trying to design a real
: product that's gotta go out the door on time......

People are using this stuff in industry. Open your eyes and look
around. You'll see more of it as time goes on.

Stuart


: Prescott

 

[Hal Murray]

IMHO, the problem of gEDA is that it doesn't have a very extensive and
*checked for accuracy* (even if some faults escape, EAGLE has let some
escape in libraries) components library (like EAGLE, for instance, has)

I'd much rather have a small set of good examples and a good
library editing capability than a huge library.

Even if I can find something that looks right, I have to
carefully check it. Often my view of "good" is slightly
different from the guy who did that part for the library.

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