Bill, You've hit the nail on the head. I've used Protel since 1987, I've also used Mentor. I was influential in converting my current company from using Mentor to using Protel. Simply because, for our kind of work, Protel was more intuitive, faster, and the designer could focus on designing the board. My DXP is still in the box. My current workload cannot tolerate the learning curve or reduction in my efficiency to change to DXP at this time. There are some good things in DXP, but there are many features that really don't seem to help my productivity.
regards, Phil Dutton CID -----Original Message----- From: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 10 March 2004 10:31 AM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] 2004 DXP Looks Great, Hmmm... my 2 cents. (that's about what it's worth...) Bah...Protel has a following because it was the best bang for the buck and it had a good user interface... That was P98 SP3 in my book.... most useful package I ever bought. It's just not there anymore... it's more costly, and they have all kinds of file/project management road blocks and useless 'hoopla' built into the software that just gets in the way. Who wants to 'jump through hoops' to get their work done.. any volunteers? My advice to Altium, Improve our productivity through the use of smart tools, not more complexity. The old task specific packages were easier to use than anything that has come after them. We kept track of our files without all this extra junk. If there are linkages needed to improve the product, do it in the background, don't make the designer become a programmer to overcome poor implementation on the part of the developers. I have used this product for a long time now, mostly because it has been the tool that was available. If I have to change tools I will... I have in the past many times. Currently I am using 2 PCB design tools here to support older designs and newer ones that were developed on different tools. K.I.S.S. - keep it simple stupid! And fix MORE than you break. We don't need more structure to use the product...it just gets in the way. What we need is pin and gate swapping, we need a good autorouter, we need impedance matching tools to help with matched line lengths... and calculate better layer construction and the right materials to use... a wizard for those things would go a long way towards making our jobs easier. Build in IPC standards into the product... help us do our jobs more efficiently... we might even get raises from getting our boards out more trouble free and quicker... That's the key, make it easier to use and you have a winner. Mentor has created a monster, its unbelievable what happens to a cad tool when unchecked and unmanaged programmers get a hold of it... Pads is stuck with its poor 'just stick the feature here' philosophy... tools and commands are buried in such unrelated and topsy turvy menu structures and names that it takes months of use before you can make a board... and yet we do. We can figure it out... but why make it so difficult? My guess is it was probably easier for the programmers not the end user. I bet the programmers just love the product... but they don't use it. If someone would just take all the stuff that works good in the program and clean up the stuff that was broken or didn't work right they would have something. Get rid of the programmers that want to make some sort of a file management tool out of it... they are just making it worse and more complicated. We don't NEED or WANT that. You need to hire a PCB designer to run the development of the tool... that will make sure that you end up with something a PCB designer would like. Hire a EE to run the development of the Schematic and chip development tools... your success will be overwhelming.... vision is the key... so many things fail for lack of clear vision. Understand your customer. Put yourself in our shoes... then create the product. I have not yet seen the new product release for 2004... but I have seen DXP... and 99SE, and 99, and 98, and 2.5 ... so when do we get what we want? Bill Brooks PCB Design Engineer , C.I.D., C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
