[sdiy] Proteus PCB documentation

[Robin Whittle]

The Proteus schematic / PCB / simulation software doesn't have any
publicly available manuals.  There is extensive help information in
the program, in the Help section, which could be printed in colour.

I wrote to info at labcenter.co.uk (the company is based in the UK) and
within hours received a detailed reply to my questions.  This included
a link to a zip file with PDF manuals:

  Schematic:    ISIS_Tutorial.pdf  8.2MB   229 pages
  PCB:          ARES_Tutorial.pdf  5.6MB   204 pages
  Simulation:   VSM_Tutorial.pdf   4.5MB   180 pages

These page counts include the extensive indexes.  They are all very
recent: 21 Feb 2011.  This is not a public file, but I guess anyone
who writes to them will get a reply with its URL.

I understand they do support "back-annotation" - where a change to the
PCB will be automatically reflected in the matching schematic.

I suggested that on their website, they should show more examples of
the schematics themselves, in different styles, in the final PDF or
bit-mapped format, not just screendumps from the software.  They
"noted" this suggestion, so perhaps there will be some better examples
in the future.

  - Robin