Protel 99SE - a good choice

[martin.shoebridge]

Client 3.5 , no upgrades, and it runs on my Sony Viao laptop as well......

 

[Michael Schwingen]

In article <8o2dnftGmtrbteLZnZ2dnUVZ_vadnZ2d@adelphia.com>,
Mike Elliott <j.michael.elliott@gmail.com> wrote:

Protel 3.x under XP appears to be having a host of problems. The only
reproducible one is when I hit the scroll wheel on my mouse -- that's
guaranteed to cause Protel AdvPCB to crash instantly with a General
Protection error. It generally takes two or three attempts after that to
relaunch Protel, the first one or two attempts crash immediately, too.
Often Protel will have forgotten the files I was working on, and will
often forget my workspace settings, too. This error can be caused on
both of my machines, one of which has a scroll area on the touchpad.

Often, the crashes result in Protel corrupting or weirdly messing up its
own config files (.ini, .rcs, etc.) so re-launches are always an adventure.

I run Protel 3.x (the "about" box shows EDA Client 3.6.0 as version number)
regularly under XP (US version). Yes, there are crashes from time to time,
but on my machine, these happen rarely and do not corrupt files - I can not
exactly remember how to reproduce a crash now, but they were related to
certain operations, which I avoid now, so it is quite useable for my kind of
work.

I use Protel DXP at work, and that is a low slower and crashed more often
then my old 3.6.0 running under XP.

So what's the scoop on VMWare? Looks pretty geeky. But, as you say, at
$189, it might be the low-cost solution to an otherwise messy and
embarrassing problem. Thank you!

It really is - I have bought vmware 3.x to run Windows software under Linux
without booting the "real" windows machine, and I have vmware 4.5 (360-day
limited) from a german magazine CD running on XP for various tests (try out
bootable CDs etc.).

I seem to remember that vmware gave away one of their vmware server versions
- I have not tried if these work for interactive work.

Furthermore, there is the vmware player, which can run pre-configured
virtual machines at no cost - either use the limited time demo to set one
up, or start from a downloaded VM image. This should work fine for Win 98
usage.

Also I read that Microsoft is also giving away its virtual server software -
I have not tried that because the download required a passport account.

If you are happy with the functions/performance your Protel version offers,
keeping it (either in a virtual machine or on a dedicated PC) is probably
the cheapest and easiest solution.

cu
Michael
--
Some people have no repect of age unless it is bottled.

 

[Simon Peacock]

I would suggest that an upgrade to Protel 99SE is a good option. The cost
may be steep but it was (if you use SP6) the most stable of the recent
releases. Polygon pours are far better and the forward annotate/back
annotate behave as you would expect. The DDB format files is the best to
use as it has the fewest incompatibilities. You must, however, enable
compact on closing.
You also need to check the licensing agreement before buying. So of the
more recent sales have a new license, in it you can't sell Protel so there
is no support or upgrades. I would avoid going to DXP (not AD2006) unless
you need some of its features. I can't say I've been impressed with it as
its slow and very resource hungry.

So a brief history of Protel:
Protel 2.8 Windows 3.x / OS2 (windows box). First stable
windows version. Very good but not compatible with newer
OS's. Forward annotate was very BAD and
tended to produce a considerable of unneeded changes.
Protel 3.0 Very good but five individual programs. Polygon
pours are slow but work.
Protel 98 Very buggy, free upgrade to Protel 99
Protel 99 Replaced at SP3 level by 99SE
Protel 99SE SP6 was the last of the good releases, a few crashes
are experienced especially with less than 512 meg RAM or
ATI video. Works best with Matrox Video or
nvidia video cards.
DXP New version (bloatware) under new license
agreement. tends to crash often, considerable numberof workarounds
required. Serious development issue is
feature addition rather than stability as main focus.
AD2006 More features than DXP. Should have been a free "bug
fix" upgrade not a new expense.

Simon


"Michael Schwingen" <news-1115562921@discworld.dascon.de> wrote in message
news:4egt46F1emhdjU1@individual.net...

In article <8o2dnftGmtrbteLZnZ2dnUVZ_vadnZ2d@adelphia.com>,
Mike Elliott <j.michael.elliott@gmail.com> wrote:

Protel 3.x under XP appears to be having a host of problems. The only
reproducible one is when I hit the scroll wheel on my mouse -- that's
guaranteed to cause Protel AdvPCB to crash instantly with a General
Protection error. It generally takes two or three attempts after that to
relaunch Protel, the first one or two attempts crash immediately, too.
Often Protel will have forgotten the files I was working on, and will
often forget my workspace settings, too. This error can be caused on
both of my machines, one of which has a scroll area on the touchpad.

Often, the crashes result in Protel corrupting or weirdly messing up its
own config files (.ini, .rcs, etc.) so re-launches are always an
adventure.

I run Protel 3.x (the "about" box shows EDA Client 3.6.0 as version
number)
regularly under XP (US version). Yes, there are crashes from time to time,
but on my machine, these happen rarely and do not corrupt files - I can
not
exactly remember how to reproduce a crash now, but they were related to
certain operations, which I avoid now, so it is quite useable for my kind
of
work.

I use Protel DXP at work, and that is a low slower and crashed more often
then my old 3.6.0 running under XP.

So what's the scoop on VMWare? Looks pretty geeky. But, as you say, at
$189, it might be the low-cost solution to an otherwise messy and
embarrassing problem. Thank you!

It really is - I have bought vmware 3.x to run Windows software under
Linux
without booting the "real" windows machine, and I have vmware 4.5 (360-day
limited) from a german magazine CD running on XP for various tests (try
out
bootable CDs etc.).

I seem to remember that vmware gave away one of their vmware server
versions
- I have not tried if these work for interactive work.

Furthermore, there is the vmware player, which can run pre-configured
virtual machines at no cost - either use the limited time demo to set one
up, or start from a downloaded VM image. This should work fine for Win 98
usage.

Also I read that Microsoft is also giving away its virtual server
software -
I have not tried that because the download required a passport account.

If you are happy with the functions/performance your Protel version
offers,
keeping it (either in a virtual machine or on a dedicated PC) is probably
the cheapest and easiest solution.

cu
Michael
--
Some people have no repect of age unless it is bottled.

 

[Mike Elliott]

On 6/4/2006 8:43 AM martin.shoebridge wrote:

Client 3.5 , no upgrades, and it runs on my Sony Viao laptop as well......

Okay, then I'll wager that some system tray or other background app that
I'm running on both machines is the culprit.

-- Mike Elliott

 

[JeffM]

Client 3.5 , no upgrades, and it runs on my Sony Viao laptop as well......
martin.shoebridge

I'll wager that some system tray or other background app
that I'm running on both machines is the culprit.
Mike Elliott

How clean a box are you running?

http://web.archive.org/web/20050401044922/http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/17/xphome_sp2/
The "Related Stories" are also worth a read
--especially "...sabotage...".

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:hiWoWmS-9pgJ:www.optimizingpc.com/optimize/msconfig.html+disable+zzz+Startup-tab
(Black Viper sez to avoid the "Services" tab.)

 

[Mike Elliott]

On 6/5/2006 2:35 PM JeffM wrote:

How clean a box are you running?

http://web.archive.org/web/20050401044922/http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Yikes! That's a mighty impressive page you linked to.

-- m.e.

 

[JeffM]

How clean a box are you running?
http://web.archive.org/web/20050401044922/http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
JeffM

Yikes! That's a mighty impressive page you linked to.
Mike Elliott

*Deep theatrical bow*
The original is 404. You may have noticed
that I had to go to the Wayback Machine (the Internet Archive)
to find an old copy.

The default config of XP reminds me of the translation of "Gumbo"
that goes: "Yeah, throw that in too."

 

[Mike Elliott]

On 6/5/2006 11:31 PM JeffM wrote:

How clean a box are you running?

<snip>

The default config of XP reminds me of the translation of "Gumbo"
that goes: "Yeah, throw that in too."

Right, well, I know my machines are not as "clean" as the default XP
setup listed on that link. I'm got all kinds of exciting and normally
zero-trouble background apps showing in the system tray, including Avast
antivirus, OpenOffice Quicklauncher, VNC Server, Gmail Notifier, NTI
Shadow (background backup operations), Personal Smartcheck (HD
monitoring), Java Platform . . . and a dozen or so more bits. None of
which normally cause any trouble at all. But maybe Protel 3.x is deeply
disturbed by one or more of them.

Doesn't "safe mode" provide some way to launch XP in a cleanly way?

More useful, though, might be a means to selectively launch my "special"
apps so I can trial and error troubleshoot for possible conflicts with
Protel.

-- m.e.

 

[JeffM]

got all kinds of exciting and normally zero-trouble
background apps showing in the system tray[...]

Doesn't "safe mode" provide some way to launch XP in a [clean] way?
Mike Elliott

Yeah. Safe Mode won't go thru the Startup List launching things.
The problem is that it uses generic device drivers and will look like
crap
--not really a solution.

The solution is simple: just follow my motto:
"Don't waste RAM on an app until you actually NEED it running.
(That goes double WRT boot time.)"

 

[Brad Velander]

Mike,
One thing that Protel didn't get along with in the P98 & P99SE version
time frame was antivirus scans on open/run and close/save. Don't know about
back at 3.X versions but just thought I would mention it as a likely suspect
if your antivirus was set up for scanning on file open/run and close/save.
That did tend to just crash during file opening or closing though, sounds
like your problems are more intermittent during actual design operations.

--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.

"Mike Elliott" <j.michael.elliott@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:QOidnZ7SkpCiBhjZnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@adelphia.com...

On 6/5/2006 11:31 PM JeffM wrote:
SNIP

Right, well, I know my machines are not as "clean" as the default XP setup
listed on that link. I'm got all kinds of exciting and normally
zero-trouble background apps showing in the system tray, including Avast
antivirus, OpenOffice Quicklauncher, VNC Server, Gmail Notifier, NTI
SNIP

 

[Mike Rocket J Squirrel]

Brad Velander wrote:

Mike,
One thing that Protel didn't get along with in the P98 & P99SE version
time frame was antivirus scans on open/run and close/save.

Thanks for the thought. You are correct: the problems I am experiencing
are timed randomly, near as I can tell. I have not noticed any open/run
- close/save crashes. Repouring polygons can sometimes trigger the
crash. Moving a bunch of grouped items in PCB can also. Looking at the
screen cross-eyed while considering the next route can, too. Crashes
generally result in a GPF in Module ADVPCB.exe about (and I'm not
exaggerating here) 30 times when re-launching. I literally have 30 GPF's
in a row, serially, that I have to dismiss until they stop. The next
launch will generally be successful.

-- m.e.

 

[martin.shoebridge]

Just a thought.... could it be faulty memory? Or did you say it was on two
machines??

"Mike Rocket J Squirrel" <j.michael.elliott@GOLLYgmail.com> wrote in message
news:AJ-dnbwoVeBnlBTZnZ2dnUVZ_uidnZ2d@adelphia.com...

Brad Velander wrote:
Mike,
One thing that Protel didn't get along with in the P98 & P99SE
version time frame was antivirus scans on open/run and close/save.

Thanks for the thought. You are correct: the problems I am experiencing
are timed randomly, near as I can tell. I have not noticed any open/run -
close/save crashes. Repouring polygons can sometimes trigger the crash.
Moving a bunch of grouped items in PCB can also. Looking at the screen
cross-eyed while considering the next route can, too. Crashes generally
result in a GPF in Module ADVPCB.exe about (and I'm not exaggerating here)
30 times when re-launching. I literally have 30 GPF's in a row, serially,
that I have to dismiss until they stop. The next launch will generally be
successful.

-- m.e.

 

[Mike Elliott]

On 6/9/2006 1:31 AM martin.shoebridge wrote:

Just a thought.... could it be faulty memory? Or did you say it was on two
machines??

Two machines. Pretty identical setups. I'm pretty sure it's some utility
that I run in the background that I have determined provides a useful
service and never gives trouble. Except to Protel.

-- m.e.

 

[Mike Elliott]

Followup to my original posting about intermittent crashes of old Protel
3.x on both of my WinXP machines. For the archives.

The suggestion that I try running Protel under VM Workstation was an
excellent one. Protel 3.x's autorouter is still a piece of rubbish,and
the program is, overall, still a pain to deal with. But it's running
sweetly under VM Workstation. $189 for VM Workstation is a steal,
compared with the $3,000 I was offered by the local Altium rep for a
pre-owned copy of 99SE, or $10,000 for a seat of Altium.

Many thanks to all who chimed in to offer suggestions!

BTW, if anyone wants to sell their legal copy of 99SE, which I am told
is a good stable Protel, please drop me a note. I am not trolling for
warez.

-- m.e.

 

[Brad Velander]

Mike,
Your chances of finding P99SE for sale (legitimately) is slim. Back when
Protel upgraded to DXP, now AD, there was a run on valid P99SE licenses
amongst the professionals not wanting to upgrade but wanting the security of
additional seats if needed down the road. I used to hear of P99SE licenses
for sale every couple of months. I haven't heard of one being offered for
sale for a couple of years now.

One warning, demand to see the EULA for any purchase in advance and
confirm the legitimacy of the license transfer directly with Altium. Even
back with P99SE, Altium changed the license agreement on late sales of P99SE
to exclude sales and transfers (except if a whole company or company
division and it's assets were purchased). Anyone that upgraded to DXP and
agreed to DXP's license terms, negated their prior EULA that would have
allowed the sale of their prior P99SE license if they also uninstalled the
newer version. The DXP EULA contains wording that negates the
transferability of earlier EULAs. So caution is the word if you really want
to be legit.

The other problem is that a lot of the P99SE support documentation and
tools are no longer to be found on the Altium website. Some are but not a
lot of them. Forget the paper manuals, little better than the online help
and it was never updated over many changes/improvements to the product. If
you did get a license you could try posting so that I notice. I could email
a lot of the support files and documentation as I archived most of it years
ago before it started to disappear.

You could also try the Yahoo groups, there used to be a Yahoo group
"Protel Software for Sale" or something similar. It is one of about 6 groups
if you search for "Protel". It is/was run by a fella named Abd-ul Rahman
just to facilitate sales of old Protel licenses. Sometimes he was selling
licenses that he had purchased, sometimes he was simply acting as a broker.
He is legitimate and trustable, I have been acquainted with him for about 6
years now. If you contacted him he will probably repeat most of what I have
said above and then some.

--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.

"Mike Elliott" <j.michael.elliott@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:XNudnbaeYe5CzRLZnZ2dnUVZ_s-dnZ2d@adelphia.com...

BTW, if anyone wants to sell their legal copy of 99SE, which I am told is
a good stable Protel, please drop me a note. I am not trolling for warez.

-- m.e.

 

[Mike Elliott]

On 6/13/2006 11:55 PM Brad Velander wrote:

Mike,
Your chances of finding P99SE for sale (legitimately) is slim.

Many thanks for the background and tips, Brad!

-- m.e.

 

[Mike Rocket J Squirrel]

Brad Velander wrote:

The other problem is that a lot of the P99SE support documentation and
tools are no longer to be found on the Altium website. Some are but not a
lot of them. Forget the paper manuals, little better than the online help
and it was never updated over many changes/improvements to the product. If
you did get a license you could try posting so that I notice. I could email
a lot of the support files and documentation as I archived most of it years
ago before it started to disappear.

Brad, I'm not seeing how to de-spam your e-mail address, so I'll post
this any maybe you can send me an e-mail at your convenience - just
delete the GOLLY.

I guess I'm biting the bullet and buying a seat of AD with a "legacy"
25% discount. A costly upgrade for my needs, one that really puts frost
on my pumpkin.

I would like to take you up on your offer for copies of the support
information you so thoughtfully archived.

-- Mike Elliott

 

[Anton Erasmus]

On Wed, 31 May 2006 11:04:21 -0700, Mike Rocket J Squirrel
<j.michael.elliott@GOLLYgmail.com> wrote:

I have been using Protel 3.x for ages (obviously), but under XP it
crashes a lot, for various reasons that are mysterious, despite my best
effort to make XP as compatible as possible. I don't do many boards, and
my needs are simple: schematic capture and board layout, mainly analog,
large-trace, two-sided, hand-placed and routed. About two boards a year.
That said, I have huge schematic and pcb libraries and don't want to
re-create all those bits.

But this week the crashing and other quirks of Protel 3.x have finally
gotten really frustrating, so I contacted my local Altium salesguy and
he quoted me nearly $10,000 to buy a single seat of Designer 6, which is
a bit silly for my needs. He agrees. He suggested that maybe 99SE would
be a better choice, and knows a fellow who is looking to sell his copy
for $3,000.

$3,000 is affordable, but it's not a trivial amount of money. I could
use a bit of advice on this before I plunk down the cash, so TIA who can
maybe provide some guidance.

99SE is reasonably decent. It is a good upgrade from 3.x. I tried
demos of later versions, and for my needs they add nothing worthwhile,
while eating up 10x more resources. Like many other Windows programs,
the programmers seem to be rewriting the application using Microsofts
latest buzzword technologies, making it slower without adding much.
Going from simple monochrome pictures to indicate which dimensions one
is changing for a pad to going to pictures with a shiny copper sheen,
which does not give any more info but takes much more processing power
to display.

Regards
Anton Erasmus

 

[Anton Erasmus]

On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 08:26:54 -0700, Mike Elliott
<j.michael.elliott@gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/1/2006 1:24 AM JeffM wrote:

I have been using Protel 3.x for ages (obviously),
but under XP it crashes a lot
[...]this week the crashing and other quirks of Protel 3.x
have finally gotten really frustrating
-- mike elliott (Mike Rocket J Squirrel)

How about a FAT32 partition and a Boot Manager?
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:e0R7iiJZWwQJ:www.programmersheaven.com/zone16/cat764/index.htm+partition-manager+boot-manager+7tools+BootIt+Acronis+Paragon+Partition-Manager-Personal

...or as Speff said, a separate, specialized, retro box for CAD.


Yeah, I reckon that would work. It would sure be less-expensive than
99SE. I could avoid the 99SE learning curve, too. I don't think that
99SE offers anything that I desperately need anyway. So I'll ask my
local computer shop weenies how much they'll charge to slap together a
nifty little machine with 98SE on it.

You can also download a legal copy of VMWare for free now. This way
you can run Win98 inside your XP machine as a virtual machine. Much
nicer than having to dual boot all the time.
http://www.vmware.com

Regards
Anton Erasmus