My current CAD system is P-CAD 2006. It works well, and it can do all of the
designs that I am currently involved with.


In the past, I started (like many others), with Tape and dot layouts. Since I
was not that experienced, my designs were limited to the simpler OP-Amp
layouts with the +/-15Volts. This was probably around 1980 or so.

SmartWorks (Winboard) - my first design was munged up by the engineer who
thought that he knew better than me and flipped the Op-Amp upside down on the
layout. I didn't know about this until after the boards were fabbed, and it
didn't work. Later, someone told me (not the engineer). They got it to work by
plugging the IC in from the bottom side of the board.

Dash-PCB (Data-I/O - Schematic was called FutureNet) - I believe they used
some sort of OPUS board that ran unix in an IBM-AT (at a blazing 6MHz), which
was loaded via 16 5-1/4" floppies. I learned unix that summer. I also spent
one or two nights at work waiting for the Auto-router to complete a small
design. Dash-PCB was integrated with FutureNet. Not sure what happened to this
CAD system... was it sold? 

Cadnetix - unix-based - CDX50000, and then Sun Sparc Station F1.2(?) I did
complex 12-layer NASA flight boards on this system. I even reverse-engineered
a design that was very complex and had Blind-Vias. A task that no one had done
before. Even Tech Support was impressed (I think). Cadnetix then became Dazix,
and later Intergraph.

Accel EDA - which got renamed later to P-CAD 200x

Eagle - mainly translated Eagle designs to P-CAD. Both Schematic & PCB.

HiWire (Wintek) - I was able to convince the company to upgrade to ACCEL EDA
and I translated all of the designs over.

OrCAD (7.0?) - buggy as heck and ate my pcb design when I did a save. A patch
was released immediately after I phoned in to Tech support and they re-created
the issue. I was able to convince management to go with P-CAD 200x for PCB
layouts. The engineers used OrCAD Capture for the Schematics, and I developed
a program (OrN2ACL) that translated the Netlist to P-CAD - better than what
OrCAD provided. I was able to do a layout in P-CAD and Back-Annotate
successfully to Schematic transparently. I still use my OrN2ACL program to
this day, and many other designers use it, too.

Pulsonix - not too impressed... it works.

PADS - not too impressed. I suppose you have to use it a lot to like it.

I apologize for the narrative, but sometimes it helps with the history of
where I am right now.

I don't consider myself an 'expert' on any of the above CAD systems - even the
current one that I am now using. But, I know the CAD software well enough to
handle almost any situation that arises and get a good PCB on the first spin -
most of the time.

Regards,

James Jackson
Oztronics


Quoting "Brooks, Bill" <[log in to unmask]>:

> What CAD tools do you use?
> 
> 
> 
> Bill Brooks | Datron World Communications, Inc.
> PCB Designer/Engineer | Office: 760-602-7004| Fax: 760-597-3777 |
> [log in to unmask]
> 3055 Enterprise Court, Vista, CA 92081 | www.dtwc.com
> 
> Performance You Require. Value You ExpectTM
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
> For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV
> 16.0.
> To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
> the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil.
> To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET
> DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL)
> For additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or
> 847-615-7100 ext.2815
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 





______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] 
______________________________________________________________________

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 16.0.
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil.
To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL)
For additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------