Homebrew PCBs

ORCAD is nice,
but if you are no student you won't be able to afford it.

ST


On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 22:39:14 -0700, Michael Johnston 
<mike_johnston@...> wrote:

> Sorry about the previous post.  I got to clicking a bit too fast in 
> Outlook.
>
> I've been evaluating different schematic capture and pcb layout programs 
> for
> Windows for the last two months.  Of what I've seen, there seem to be 
> three
> basic classes of software.  (1) Garbage that is not worth the time to
> download, (2) limited usability and (3) ridiculously expensive (>$1500).
> Several programs fall into the first category (I won't list them for 
> fear of
> offending someone's favorite program).  There is no need to go into the
> third.  That leaves the middle category.
>
> Programs like EasyPC are a pleasure to use but are significantly lacking 
> in
> functionality.  The well thought out user interface allows you to sit 
> down
> and actually be productive in a matter of minutes.  But limited
> functionality keeps you from going too far.  At the other end of the 
> scale
> is Eagle.  Excellent functionality but totally lacking in a functional 
> user
> interface.  Now before anyone says "You're crazy, Eagle's great you just
> need to give it a chance" let me say that I will fully agree with you 
> that
> Eagle will do just about everything a home hobbyist and many pro's will
> need.  BUT, any program that is going to take three weeks of my time 
> just to
> figure out how to create new libraries, get them entered into a schematic
> and create a board layout is NOT how I define "functional".  It may be 
> great
> once you know it, but I would rather spend the learning time actually 
> doing
> something productive with another program.  With EasyPC I was able to 
> figure
> all of these things out (as far as the cripleware version would allow) in
> under a couple of hours.
>
> So, is there anything out there with the usability of EasyPC and the
> functionality of Eagle that doesn't fall into category three that I just
> haven't come across yet?  What is the closest I can get to both worlds?
>
> What do the people in this group use?
>
>
>
>
>
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