Everything Else

I am filling a pro/con list, to decide if to buy/not a better EDA-workstation.

I've been using Protel 99 SE for years, and to me, there isn't a big difference between Protel 99 and Altium R14, besides the neaely added features from DXP2004, but If one like me doesn't do high speed design (usb2-3, epci, etc) , and just need a CAD tool (without EDA-like smartness), then 99SE should suffice, though it may have a hard time running on newer computers.

I know it runs on WinXP, never tried Win10, I know it crashes on Win7. That's bug life.

Btw, I have recently found a second-hands workstation with OrCAD v10 (full license, full features) installed. Asking to Virtuoso users (like my colleague), he said that if Cadence releases something, it will work, though you need to know exactly how it works before using it as Cadence is not designing tools for beginners.

So, what next? If I will put the money (1.5K euro/IBM Xeon Machine/1 host-seat license) into the new purchase, I would expect OrCAD to be best tool for veterans, and hell for beginners, but I won't exclude it will also be a bloody hell for people with rusty knowledge.

Hard decision

I've been using eagle forever, finally upgraded to autodesk version late last year. Worth it.

I've tried a few others and they all suck IMO. Their salesmen suck too.

I don't know orcad very well but building your own footprints/packages tends to be a pita no matter what you are using.

I've considered altium because we are solidworks shop and want to avoid a subscription price. However you cant do shit (activate/deactivate) to a solidworks installation without a maintenance service so unless you archive a VM at somepoint you will have to pay for backdated maintenance service. I expect altium/swpcb to be much the same.

Either pay the monkey or don't play the game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

guardian452 wrote: I've been using eagle forever, finally upgraded to autodesk version late last year. Worth it.

Here I have

• EagleCAD v5.11.0, student perpetual license, node-locked to my laptop
• EagleCAD v6.06.0, professional perpetual license, node-locked to my laptop

As individual student designer, I created just a few projects, including my thesis, which can be moved to KiCAD in a two working days (or during a weekend?) and nobody cares if it will takes longer, but as person who works freelance ... well, I have deadlines and there are some 1.2GB of libraries with my own footprints / packages and projects made for my customers. So, in this case this story has a 'legacy' component that needs to be considered if I decide to move to another CAD.

Perpetual means never ending or changing, but with Autodesk, starting from Eagle-v8, the license is now subjected to expire, and a few services are offered as cloud-services, which means you MUST stay connected to a remote server if you want to operate. This is not acceptable when I need to work inside bunkers, or places where there is no internet connections.

Even if I do my best, it's unacceptable.

guardian452 wrote: I've tried a few others and they all suck IMO. Their salesmen suck too.

Have you tried DipTrace?
I am impressed by their quality, and also the price list seems interesting.
(1.5K euro per professional license)

Bonus: with DipTrace you can import DXF files from AutoCad and it helps a lot when you have to design your own complex footprints/packages, e.g. Ampx connectors, typically used in avionics.

Designing them on EagleCADv6's library editor is a bloody hell, frustrating a not so productive

guardian452 wrote: I don't know orcad very well but building your own footprints/packages tends to be a pita no matter what you are using.

Yup, OrCad v10 comes with a similar DXF-import feature, which is a bonus for me.

guardian452 wrote: I've considered altium

I have a node locked Altium-v14 machine, my second laptop, IBM Thinkpad X61S. Bought when I went to Shenzhen (China). I can't move the software to a different machine, and the LCD is too small for me, also the computer-power is not so good as it's an intel dual core i2 @ 1.6Ghz, limited to 2GB of ram, and with Window XP/32 under the hood.

I bought it to learn Altium, whose price list is in order of n*K euro.

The Chinese latptop is also loaded with a full license version of Protel 99. Found it on the hard drive D: as rescue plus license, probably the previous owner unistalled it when he/she decided to move to Alitium. It's node locked, so I can only re-install it on the Chinese laptop, btw I have to say it runs better on the limited hardware where it's loaded. Unfortunately I don't have the DXF module.

Protel and Altium also offer module to handle HDL, and they both handle hierarchically, so you can embed your HDL (hardware description language) as black-box module, and it goes so damn productive.


p.s.
can I shoot the monkey?

I have also version 6.6 professional still installed (I don't trust autodesk much either, tho I've never had a problem, I also don't work in a bunker without a signal ), but being able to scroll and zoom via multitouch and not needing to find a mouse, and also mostly working retina support, are well worth the $15/month when I am working on a project (I rarely have something big that takes more than a month or two so it is easy to afford on a month-to-month basis).

guardian452 wrote: don't work in a bunker without a signal

oh, about this, it's really funny what happens when I have to go to some customers who claim to be in business with aerospace, defence and security. To enter, you have to pass the check-in, as well as the check-out when you want to go home. It implies two or five cops in mimetic suit who 'check' you, looking for devices like smartphone, mp3 player, as everything with a storage-device is banned as they suppose you could be a spy. So, you'd better (for your own safety) declare what you have, and leave devices in their custody.

Your laptop, which of course has an hard drive, must have a signed approval-pass with a bar-code attached to their archive. Your hard drive must have a list of its contents, and it's subject to randomly control during both the check-in or check-out. Everything is registered, who you are, where you live, how can they catch you if you something goes wrong.

They are paranoid about information stolen. You cannot use any encrypted volume. It's banned. Also linux,freeBSD are not the welcome, not approved, therefore banned. Ironically Windows XP/32 (which is now deprecated from Microsoft support, they don't care) is approved as well as SunOS

And when you finally enter, you are disconnected from internet, you must stay unplugged, disconnected. You can only (but you need an approval pass) use the local network, which connects you only to their minor-server (called "Minos", like the one in Greek mythology), but only with a user-level. Mine is 'guest level', it means my plastic-pass can just open the door of the toilet (and only the one at the ground floor), and when I use my-pass to login to the lab I can't do anything more advanced than using ftp to get/put files to his guest folder.

Every attempt to use a GPRS/radio-link is severely punished. Every attempt to access the laboratory server is logged, you are under Snort, and if they found something strange with your mac-address (which is also registered during the check-in) you will be kicked faster than you can ran. There are also Gitters and Jammer radio machines with rods and grids, mainly used to -1- detect all the in-coming/out-coming radio signals (not approved, therefore banned), -2- locate where the signals comes from, -3- disturb the signal, and -4- and alert cops.

It's cured by defense, they are on the third floor of the building, where they develop radars. Everything is full of these kind of grids, so they have eyes, hears, microphones, and antennas everywhere.

So, you are really unplugged, inside a bunker. No chance to escape, no chance to access an external cloud, but you can really try to feel like an inmate

My customer contact is a she. Business lady, strict as a piece of iron. Never seen a smile, and people around her say "yes, madam". Never heard a "no", and when she talks for more than 2 minutes, people appears frightened

Funny job, even if I rarely need to physically go to this kind of customer, sometimes I happen to stay there for a couple of weeks.

Y888099 wrote: my plastic-pass can just open the door of the toilet (and only the one at the ground floor)

You're allowed to go to the toilet on your own? That's relaxed I've been to places where someone had to accompany you at all times, which meant walking with you to the toilet, and waiting outside to make sure you really didn't go anywhere else.

And then there was that time I had a marine jump in front of my car with his rifle pointing my way because I forgot to put my visitor badge on my dashboard (the reflection in the windshield was really annoying). Won't happen again, no sir ...

I finished filming the end of the Trans-Canada Highway (from Langley BC to Victoria BC, including the ferry crossing from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo).

Yesterday my -next-door-girl- asked me to steal a fridge's compressor with the idea of converting it into an airbrush machine to paint skulls. Today she is painting a lot of skulls and snakes in bloody true colors, even if the background looks dead metal.

I am observing her work sitting in an angle of her lab. The way she puts her long fingers on the airbrush-gun makes in my mind the picture of a witch in the wood preparing some kind of poison spell.

Sounds like love.

Y888099 wrote: Yesterday my -next-door-girl- asked me to steal a fridge's compressor with the idea of converting it into an airbrush machine to paint skulls. Today she is painting a lot of skulls and snakes in bloody true colors, even if the background looks dead metal.

I am observing her work sitting in an angle of her lab. The way she puts her long fingers on the airbrush-gun makes in my mind the picture of a witch in the wood preparing some kind of poison spell.

Does she know you are watching her?

Trying to figure out new tricks with my hand spinner - it's Father's Day anyhow

uunix wrote: Does she know you are watching her?

I believe she likes to be watched. I am not sure, but she doesn't say me to go away, and when she paints anatomic parts, I noticed the way she paints becomes more sensual when I stay. Perhaps she needs to be observed as ego burst, or as inspiration.

I still don't know her very well, I see her only during the weekends. Her eyes are not the warm kind of eyes who shine, they are blue ice, and even her face expression is deceiving which makes it difficult to understand what comes into her mind when she watches at you, and she is not talkative, so all I can catch is an encrypted body language from a stranger eccentric artistic, and it doesn't help.

But curiosity never vanishes in mysterious circumstances. It grows. So I like watching her, like she was the artwork of a
mysterious artist to be demystified.

Strange sex appeal, I have to confess. Especially when she plays with the air-brush gun and I am not sure about who observes whom. Some part of the surface on where she paints are like a mirror, so she probably looks at me. I feel observed. Her eyes on me, even if I can see them directly.

Has your other neighbor noticed his fridge is warm yet?

Oskar45 wrote: Trying to figure out new tricks with my hand spinner - it's Father's Day anyhow

I was going to say you're a week early, but fortunately I looked it up first so now I know it's not the same day around the globe.

Trying to train a neural network (char-rnn) to write stallman.org pages, because why not. I spidered stallman.org, removed all the pages with no significant text, than wrote a PHP script to strip out all the HTML leaving just text and concatenated them all into a file. It was over 30MB of pure text. I then used that as training data. This is it's current output:

Neural Network wrote: �nechood�. The fear more dangerous and military plan to cut because they not killing their convicted on the danger, the poor countries and democrats of the US, and the state and missualted and have been made it has not should need to hally the enemy when the property will activise issue the real groups. I won't more people in the US. I join the property in the US to the policy and other points the US is to money to company that it to be attacking the maniada in the Earting so it will be used connecting a weapon. 10 January 2015 (Secret colonies in Lies to Julary millions workers) A women actives a parliament of the US government is a lowand power. 06 August 2007 (Helfence of global heating) The US many access for the handless of any companies in the US. In report the Afghanistan, the plantic control of the Guantanamo country has been to trying to police gang at a protects. 20 August 2016 (Urgent: Gebon Street countries) A UK war not try to a state of the US governments take to show the US to restrict the states that the condemnation changes to astenice. 20 July 2013 (Urgent: Rich on the US) A state money as a great of the exemptions of the troll's produce restored to be someone of the violence that countries. The rists to report the military control somewhines are also broked in trained to ending the world planet. 31 July 2013 (Peroption really have the US government) Trade is the real scientific proposes remains in the real informed and the construction restaided for the bombing for the protested with the US. 13 August 2011 (Decessions Banglades) The US and the US health since the US government to the defeating a corporations and court for a wantes to protect the recosting for out the protests some of the states, but and the corporates and most of the power the protection. They are the state state strong health is in a large of the carafulting the protection. 27 March 2013 (When the US Trump's finding military mistages are stated for the power in Europe to protect

I hope this doesn't break the "no politics" rule. It doesn't really make any valid, sensible, or grammatically correct points, so I don't think it really counts. It is smart enough to label some parts as "Urgent", which is interesting. It also occasionally understands how brackets work, and divides things into sentences seemingly at random.

This is after about 24 hours of training on my laptop's CPU. I'm not home right now, but once I get home, I will give it the same time on my desktop's GPU and see where that gets.

Dodoid wrote: It doesn't really make any valid, sensible, or grammatically correct points, so I don't think it really counts.

That's not a disqualifier in politics these days, it seems...