Hi Steve,
I've ended up going with AutoTrax myself.
It is low cost and after trying it for a while, found that it
actually works.
There are some surprises with it, such as not a lot of packages in
the library, and some heavy duty reading needed to understand it -
but once you see what it does it is actuallay very good for the price.
I'm an registered electrician / electronics technician / designer /
inventor / and heavy drinker, and I get really pissed of with
software (and other things) that don't fit the bill.
AutoTrax has work for me and doesn't cost the huge price of things
like Easy-PC.
It easily suits multi-monitor computers (would advise something beter
than an Atari though) and is flexible in what it can do from package
design, footprint design, 3D, spice, schematic and pcb - although I
have not been using it for long and have not mastered complex PCBs,
it is doing what I want for now.
Good luck with your endevours.
Daryl Mills
LogicResearch.
--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Steve Greenfield
<alienrelics@...> wrote:
>
> Sigh... well, I knew I'd never get a consensus when I asked about
this a year ago.
>
> So I'm going with Eagle for now because 1. I found a book about
using it in the Half Price Bookstore, 2. Someone made a library for
the PIC32MXxxxx series for which I'm doing a few projects, and 3. It
is free or cheap.
>
> I graduate at the end of this year. If I put Eagle on my resume, do
you think it will hurt or help?
>
> In my classes, AutoCAD is the official CAD, my instructor told me
to choose which Schem. Capture/ PCB Router I would learn. There is a
classroom budget for software, so I could pick something not free,
but something that costs $2,000 to $15,000 isn't going to happen. I
don't want something so limited that I can only put a few generic ICs
on a board.
>
> I'm attending Bates Technical College, Electronic Engineering
Technician course. While I'm here, I'm getting the CET I should have
gotten long ago and going for the FCC commercial license.
>
> Steve Greenfield
>