[sdiy] Altrium Designer/Protel

[Seb Francis]

Hi Tom,

Quickly reading your list of criteria I was thinking Proteus.  Then I 
saw you found this already yourself.  I use version 5.2 and have been 
very happy with it.  Got a few quirks - for example non-standard 
keyboard shortcuts and mouse button use (although I believe they've now 
changed these things in later versions).

Only problem may be the price - it's very reasonable for small (low 
pincount) PCBs, but gets kind of expensive for larger designs.

Seb


Tom Arnold wrote:
> So, I've gotten several responces on Protel/Altium, and they all seem to fit
> what I got from 4 hours with the Eval last night.  Its big, its expensive, its
> sometimes not terribly stable, and you either like it or you don't.
>
> It felt kinda like driving a VW Van full of bags of cement, up a hill, in high
> wind to use the Used Car analogy...
>
> I have a small set of personal criteria that I use for seeing how much time I'm
> going to spend testing a package.
>
> 1. Quick look at depth of parts library.  How many?  Analog depth?
> 2. Quick look at existing devices.  Are multi-part devices broken up into
> multiple parts?  Several packages I looked at packaged TL074's into large
> multipin blobs.
> 3. Assuming multipart parts are multipart, how well does placing them work?
> Does it automatically place PartA then B then C or do you place a bunch of A's
> and then go back and unify them into a single part?
> 4. Place a few components ( 555 timer circuit ) and connect them.  Does it
> "feel" right.  Do things snap to grid cleanly?
> 5. Create a new schematic symbol.  Judge painfulness.  Make it multipart.
> 6. Export netlist into PCB design.  
> 7. Create footprint for custom part.  Pain?
> 8. Do quick board layout for 555 timer circuit.  Rip up a track, does the
> ratsnest reappear? ( yes, I like using ratsnests )
> 9. Can I arbitrarily create PCB features like copper pours and the like and
> electrically link them, or do I have to do something non-intutive involving
> tweaking the netlist?
>
> There are of course other things I can't quite define that are on the mental
> version of this list.  As short as this list is, its surprising how many things
> fail it in some annoying way or another.  In fact, I looked at 20 some EDA
> packages this weekend including a couple from my distant past, and they all
> failed except, sofar, Proteus.  My "short list" right now in fact is just Eagle
> and Proteus.  Eagle is far from ideal, but it has other advantages that might
> offset its annoyances.
>
> I'd be interested in hearing other persons pet peeves with EDA packages too,
> might just remind me of something I've forgotten I hated.  One amusing thing
> I've noted...  
> In all cases ( PADS/Designworks/Orcad ) of the packages I used years ago,
> they all annoy the heck out of me now.  Sadly.
>
>