Electronic Software

[Josh Rowe]

Hello All!

I was just wondering what software any of you use to draw up 
schematics.  The software I've looked at seems to fall into 2 general 
categories: really expensive or practically freeware.
By really expensive, I mean ~$300 dollars (like Electronics Workbench 
and Circuit Simulator).  These programs also usually do circuit 
simulation (which would be really good), but I'd only pay that much 
money if I could simulate ANYTHING I wanted: I've heard that 
Electronics Workbench does not have any OTAs in the parts library.  
That's a bad sign to me.
The other choice seems to be freeware stuff that runs in DOS and is a 
pain in the butt to use, and may not even draw proper circuits (like 
you can't tell which lines connect and which ones just cross each 
other).  With software like that, what's the point (other than it's 
free). :)
I would also eventually like to get some software to layout PCB, but 
that software seems to fall into the same 2 categories.  And even 
worse, a lot of the PCB software seems to have severe board size 
limitations.  (Although I know of Easytraxx which allows boards of 
almost a square yard--definately enough overkill there!).


Ideal would be software that can draw schematics and then create a 
PCB for at most a few hundred dollars.

I don't know if anyone can point me in the right direction, but any 
help would be really appreciated. Thanks!
--------------------------------------------------------
Josh Rowe
jrowe at everest.acpl.lib.in.us