Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[edsi]

>The problem with DXP, it is fairly widely acknowledged, is that its 
increased power has come with an increased complexity which has not yet been 
sufficiently been compensated by ease-of-use enhancements. An 
experienced 99SE user is going to face a serious retraining hit at this time. The 
general report from those who bite the bullet and learn the DXP way is that it is 
worth it, *but*, quite obviously, if you are going to have to retrain, the time is 
ripe to consider other systems.<


Here is my assessment
Fair Warning ... don't uninstall your 99SE if the EULA indeed recommended that you 
uninstall. I have had 2004 long enough to do about 6 pcb designs, and can report few 
if any real improvements. Let's count the real improvements, without arguing whether 
features are better or not. PCB onlyI don't dabble in the schematica world

SPECTRA interface has improved, ODB output is an improvement, PAD stacks are finally 
implemented. RELIABILTY rates with version 3.x. I got access violations to the point 
that it quit working on me completely. Had to shut down for a half day, translate that 
to half day loss wages. Mouse control rates with version 3.x . Things stick to your 
cursor and you scream at your PC LET IT GO , I don't want to pick that up. Maybe I 
need to slow down my inputs so DXP can catch up. I forgot to mention, it worse than a 
resource hog it is a pig. It is slower than 99SE. I am running a 2 Gig machine. I had 
to disable MACAFEE virus and my firewall. Half the time it wont even come up if the 
firewall is activated. How is that for real feedback and not just saying it sucks. 
Some Keystrokes are disabled so now you have depress buttons with the mouse/ cursor 
which slows design down,  it has the real feel of ACCEL.  I also am trained on PCAD.   
 Most the menus are not easily legible, you have do read thru alot of uneccessary 
inform
ation and  pictures to change one parameter. The same information is there but the 
presentation is poor. Maybe a PADS user or an ACCEL user might like it because they 
don't know the difference. ACCEL graphics looks like bit-mapped Crayola and if you 
zoom out in PADs round pads turn to squares and other objects , so this looks good to 
new Altium customers.

The masking features are cool but in case ya'll didn't know it, you could mask in 
99SE. In single mode, with one a mechanical layer click on the net, net class etc. on 
the pcb panel. The mask isn't crystal clear, but Protel could have improved this 
without introducing ACCESS VIOLATIONS , Bet you didn't know you mask in 99SE. I've 
been doing it for years to analyses complex routes. 

99 percent of what I typed into the online help turned up no help. Custumizing is very 
limited.   I exceeded this program's abilty in a few hours.  I exceed the original DXP 
release in about 30 minutes. It was useless. I must be getting smarter.  2004 is much 
better than DXP but ...

There is no real clear advantage over 99SE PCB other than popping up ACCESS VIOLATIONS 
. It designs the same  boards, in more time . Believe me, by the time I rolled my 6 th 
board out, I know how to use this program. It takes longer to design with because you 
fight with it instead of it rolling off your finger tips. I don't care if Altium is 
listening or not at this point, Im just passing the costs on to my customers like 
everyone else does. Hope Altium never needs a design from me because I would charge 
them my highest rate. At this point, I don't have time to debug their tools anymore, 
including their router. This stuff should be mature, very mature. It has been under 
development for a long time. DXP is basically on it 4th release with 2004. I don't see 
the dust settling until SP2 for 2004. I will be closer to retirement by then so it 
won't matter.  

Include unreliable netlist imports, not finding errors in the netlist, and not being 
able to match components to the libraries.  How is that for unreliable,   This is a 
recipe for designing a disaster.  I pride myself in the few errors,  I make.  I can 
not trust this program to maintain the level of integrity I have had.   How is that 
for an assesment

Mike Reagan 

EDSI

Note to Dennis Saputelli :

The 028 holes are still a problem in 2004, just harder to change back now. 



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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Joe Sapienza]

Hamid,

Not sure as I was looking at it proper, unless I get to drive it may as well
be David Copperfield. However I am a target as I dropped maintenance on
their product and I have switched a few of their customers into P99SE, my
name seems to happen by them too often. As I am frequently contacted for
whatevers. Do they offer me a free upgrade maintenance or anything else?
Heck no

The product was PADS.

Joe



- Original Message - 
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 6:47 PM
Subject: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?


> Joe Sapienza wrote:
>
> >This past week I was invited to a show and tell of one of the competitor
> >products new versions.
> >
> Pray tell what competitor's product art thou looking at.
>
> Hamid
>
>
>



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[PEDA] SV: Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Peder K. Hellegaard]

You can rest assured that the people at Pulsonix really do what they
promise. My company used to resell their products so I have been working
with them closely. In addition, they make very stable software. However, as
you all know, it is software and there are no software 100% bugfree. If you
find a bug in the Pulsonix tools and report it to them, you typically get a
bugfix within a few hours. I know it sounds too good to be true, but it's
the facts.

PS: I do NOT get paid to tell you these things, they are very serious.



Med venlig hilsen / Best regards from

Peder Hellegaard

Mediatronic Engineering ApS
Kisumvej 9
7800 Skive
Denmark

Tel: +45 9616 6192
Fax: +45 9616 6120
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Web: www.mediatronic.dk 
==




-Oprindelig meddelelse-
Fra: Tony Karavidas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sendt: 10. april 2004 23:23
Til: 'Protel EDA Forum'
Emne: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?




> -Original Message-
> From: Matt Pobursky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 2:06 PM
> To: Protel EDA Forum
> Subject: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite
> recommendation?
>

> I took a look at the Pulsonix website today and I must say
> I'm impressed. They seem to have put together a package that
> does what 90% of engineers and PCB designers I talk to need.
> The price seems reasonable too. If their tools work as
> advertised, I think Altium has much to fear.


It's $6495, not much different from 2004 and includes a lot less.

It seems like they don't do slots either:
http://www.pulsonix.com/FAQ/0001_ComponentSlots.htm





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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[hwasti]

Joe Sapienza wrote:

This past week I was invited to a show and tell of one of the competitor
products new versions.
Pray tell what competitor's product art thou looking at.

Hamid



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[PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Joe Sapienza]

Well I want to address the remark about whether EDA companies listen or not,
ask questions, etc.

This past week I was invited to a show and tell of one of the competitor
products new versions. I make no secret that I have switched a few companies
out of the competitive seats. Basically the companies wanted to switch out
for one or both of the following reasons: A:) the cost of paying
maintenance, I'll qualify this as to finances of the various outfits,
whether they are cheap or running on short pursestrings I don't know. B:)
Ease of use, with the downturn of the tech economy many keep minimal staff
and the competitor packages were overly difficult to learn quickly.
Obviously word got back when maintenance or whatever wasn't renewed.

Back to the lunch and learn session, well the other EDA company has seen the
light of ease of use and an integrated suite. Also they added some nearly
stolen concepts from P99SE, at both the PCB and Schematic levels. So the
moral of the story is Protel had a great vision with the integrated suite,
imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and currently it seems Protel
has gotten a bit off track from the original concept. I would not be too
hasty to jump ship at this moment, but Altium should read some of the
writing on the wall and learn from what the competition is doing.



- Original Message - 
From: "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 5:30 PM
Subject: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?


> At 02:40 PM 4/10/2004, John A. Ross [RSDTV] wrote:
> >It is a sad fact that Altium would prefer to listen to the 'few' than the
> >many as regards how their tools are now styled, viewed and the direction
> >that they have taken.
>
> This brings us to a classic problem, that of the alleged "silent
majority."
> Unless you actually survey a population, you don't really know what the
> population, as a whole thinks, and even polls and surveys can be
> problematic. Many people simply assume that the majority thinks the way
> they do. I think I have a solution.
>
> >By the few I mean the 'yes' men who will agree to anything from Altium
that
> >betters their own needs [...]
>
> Hmmm Isn't it normal for people to agree with something that "betters
> their own needs"?
>
> It seems fairly clear that some users *like* DXP and others don't. The
> balance is far from clear.
>
> Anyway, I'd like to see better communication between Altium and the users,
> and that is going to require a certain level of organization of the users.
> You can't communicate with someone who is incoherent, and there is no
> active mechanism which will allow the users to speak coherently. So there
> is just whatever happens to be written on the mailing lists, often by
those
> who are disproportionally motivated to write (and I include myself in
this)
> or whatever Altium privately gleans from isolated users (or, perhaps,
> determines more scientifically, I certainly don't know the extent or power
> of Altium's research in this area).
>
> And I'm going to have to write about that on
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
>
>



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Re: [PEDA] REMOVE 99SE? was - Are fiducials necessary?

[Dennis Saputelli]

we should have changed the SUBJECT, sorry
Dennis Saputelli


Tony Karavidas wrote:
> 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Steve Wiseman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
> 
> > (I wonder if that's still the case in 2004 - my copy just turned up.
> > Reading the license suggested that I'd have to remove my copy of
> > 99SE, and I'm damned if I'm doing that, so time for a chat with the
> > distributor and Altium, I guess).
> >
> > Steve
> 
> You can keep 99SE and 2004 on the same machine (and even have both open at
> the same time)
> 
> Tony
> 

-- 
___
Integrated Controls, Inc.   Tel: 415-647-0480  EXT 107 
2851 21st StreetFax: 415-647-3003
San Francisco, CA 94110 www.integratedcontrolsinc.com



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Re: [PEDA] Are fiducials necessary?

[Dennis Saputelli]

do you really mean "suggested" to remove ?

i would think that in the context of a license agreement
this would be a possible requirement to remove (which is a common term)

licenses aren't about making suggestions 

so the question is not the practical question of whether they can
coexist or run at the same time as a practical matter
but whether their is a requirement on their part that we remove 99SE

the acad license has a requirement to remove and destroy any previous
versions

ds

Tony Karavidas wrote:
> 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Steve Wiseman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
> 
> > (I wonder if that's still the case in 2004 - my copy just turned up.
> > Reading the license suggested that I'd have to remove my copy of
> > 99SE, and I'm damned if I'm doing that, so time for a chat with the
> > distributor and Altium, I guess).
> >
> > Steve
> 
> You can keep 99SE and 2004 on the same machine (and even have both open at
> the same time)
> 
> Tony
> 

-- 
___
Integrated Controls, Inc.   Tel: 415-647-0480  EXT 107 
2851 21st StreetFax: 415-647-3003
San Francisco, CA 94110 www.integratedcontrolsinc.com



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Re: [PEDA] Are fiducials necessary?

[Tony Karavidas]

> -Original Message-
> From: Steve Wiseman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 




> (I wonder if that's still the case in 2004 - my copy just turned up. 
> Reading the license suggested that I'd have to remove my copy of 
> 99SE, and I'm damned if I'm doing that, so time for a chat with the 
> distributor and Altium, I guess). 
> 
> Steve


You can keep 99SE and 2004 on the same machine (and even have both open at
the same time)

Tony 



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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:40 PM 4/10/2004, John A. Ross [RSDTV] wrote:
It is a sad fact that Altium would prefer to listen to the 'few' than the
many as regards how their tools are now styled, viewed and the direction
that they have taken.
This brings us to a classic problem, that of the alleged "silent majority." 
Unless you actually survey a population, you don't really know what the 
population, as a whole thinks, and even polls and surveys can be 
problematic. Many people simply assume that the majority thinks the way 
they do. I think I have a solution.

By the few I mean the 'yes' men who will agree to anything from Altium that
betters their own needs [...]
Hmmm Isn't it normal for people to agree with something that "betters 
their own needs"?

It seems fairly clear that some users *like* DXP and others don't. The 
balance is far from clear.

Anyway, I'd like to see better communication between Altium and the users, 
and that is going to require a certain level of organization of the users. 
You can't communicate with someone who is incoherent, and there is no 
active mechanism which will allow the users to speak coherently. So there 
is just whatever happens to be written on the mailing lists, often by those 
who are disproportionally motivated to write (and I include myself in this) 
or whatever Altium privately gleans from isolated users (or, perhaps, 
determines more scientifically, I certainly don't know the extent or power 
of Altium's research in this area).

And I'm going to have to write about that on 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]





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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Tony Karavidas]

 

> -Original Message-
> From: Matt Pobursky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 2:06 PM
> To: Protel EDA Forum
> Subject: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite 
> recommendation?
> 

> I took a look at the Pulsonix website today and I must say 
> I'm impressed. They seem to have put together a package that 
> does what 90% of engineers and PCB designers I talk to need. 
> The price seems reasonable too. If their tools work as 
> advertised, I think Altium has much to fear. 


It's $6495, not much different from 2004 and includes a lot less.

It seems like they don't do slots either:
http://www.pulsonix.com/FAQ/0001_ComponentSlots.htm



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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Tony Karavidas]

 

> -Original Message-
> From: Matt Pobursky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 2:30 PM
> To: Protel EDA Forum
> Subject: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite 
> recommendation?
> 
> On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 13:19:34 -0700, Brooks,Bill wrote:
> > This is pretty damning commentary. And maybe a bit 'rash'...
> > 
> > It does make me think hard about Mentor and the cost/vs. 
> productivity 
> > issues.
> > If, I say,* IF * Altium is shifting its focus to the 
> embedded systems 
> > market as a way of garnering revenue... it may mean that they have 
> > come to the conclusion that there is no more or not enough 
> money to be 
> > made in the PCB design industry for them, for whatever 
> reason. I doubt 
> > this, because I know that Protel has the lion's share of 
> the market in 
> > the UK and the rest of the world for that matter...
> 
> I've thought about this too and I think most EDA tool 
> companies lose sight of the fact that they are providing 
> tools to a niche market (relative to other desktop PC 
> software) with a limited size and the requirements haven't 
> changed all that much in the past 20 years. Yeah, geometries 
> have gotten smaller and frequencies higher, but schematic 
> capture and PCB design principles are still pretty much the same
> -- physics doesn't change and the manufacturing is still 
> basically copper on a substrate. 
> 
> I know when it comes to tools, I want reliability and familiarity.
> Something I can pick up, do my job efficiently, count on the 
> results and move on. 

We could all still be doing it by hand. That was reliable and familiar. Too
bad the component manufacturers just didn't shrink their parts 50% each
time. A big old DIP40 would be 1/4 We could have kept the same artwork, and
instead of reducing it 10 times, we could reduce it 20 times, cutting the
PCB down to just 1/4 of what it was in the previous rev. A big old DIP40
would be the size of a DIP16, except it would be surrounded by a lot more
tiny pins.



> Making software more complex and "feature rich" -- whether 
> for serving the fractional percent of users that really 
> require the added features (but seldom used by the vast 
> majority) or for marketing purposes
> -- seems to be more common every day. Why can't good software 
> be developed and maintained at a relatively stable feature 
> and bug-free level? I guess the software companies see no 
> increasing revenue stream with this model (since the "current 
> version" stays current, longer), even though it results in 
> the best product for the end user. So it actually pays to 
> produce buggy or otherwise deficient code, where you get to 
> charge the user for the fixes "in the next release" (service 
> pack, whatever -- heck, just change the name of the program 
> and charge an upgradge fee! ;-) ). Sheesh, I wish I could run 
> my business and write my software that way... 

How will ANY company survive if they sell you ONE - Bug Free, Featured
Laden, Value Priced, application that you are so happy with you never need
to upgrade? 
Come on, get real. Either they need to charge for bug fixes (bad) or charge
for new features (ok), but whatever they do, they need to generate $$.

Software companies have an entirely different model than us 'embedded'
contractors or hardware manufacturing companies. They invest WAY more energy
into a s/w product than we do in h/w products. Every product I know of (in
personal terms) has the h/w development done in a fraction of the time the
s/w is done. Over my career, the money paid to me for my work has been
recovered over and over again in consumer product sales. I can spin a design
into a different product will little effort and sell it again to all the
people that have to have the latest gadget. Altium can't do that. Even if we
were totally happy with 99SE, we wouldn't dump it just to have 2004 for no
good reason. It has to have more features in order to make it attractive. I
don't think it seems to be more common every day, I think it's been common
from the beginning.





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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[John A. Ross [RSDTV]]

> -Original Message-
> From: edsi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 6:48 PM
> To: Protel EDA Forum
> Subject: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite 
> recommendation?
> 
> snip <
> 
> Altium better start to listen to folks like Ray.  Ray came to 
> the same conclusions that everyone else has about DXP without 
> anyone holding a prompter if front of him.  Ray's statement 
> are pretty significant from a marketing standpoint
> 

It is a sad fact that Altium would prefer to listen to the 'few' than the
many as regards how their tools are now styled, viewed and the direction
that they have taken. 

By the few I mean the 'yes' men who will agree to anything from Altium that
betters their own needs, it is a shame that Altium cannot think for
themselves in this respect. Just because certain users can communicate well
with Altium (speak software developer language well) does not make their
guidance on product direction a good thing, or a fair representation of the
user base as a whole.

But when success is measured in pure $ at the bottom line of the
companies books instead of product quality, or user base, it is very common
for successful companies to believe that first, they can do no wrong (based
purely on their financial success and not on the product), second, their
users are locked to them so they can do what they want, third, their own
opinion (and that of their loyal followers and advocates) is more important
than the user base as a whole.
 
Generally companies fooled into a train of thought like this will 'skip'
user complaints or good suggestions that do not fit their master plan or
take a 'blinkered' view if it does not come from a source they like and will
never admit their error to themselves, and so they become isolated from the
majority of their user base.

Again IMO the trend is to restyle the Enviroment to resemble a software IDE
which better suits the FPGA tools integration (or take over), a useful
evolution indeed, and re-positions Altium tools pretty well, but I think the
core reason is that it is easier for the developers to produce an Enviroment
THEY would like, THEY understand, find NATURAL for THEM or use, than spend
the time to ask and understand what the PCB designers would actually like.

Despite its market re-positioning, I don't think the FPGA tools will stand
up well to other FPGA tool vendors on their own, so treating the PCB tools
as the poor cousins is a bad decision and IMO a mistake. 

Feature and functionality wise DXP/2004 is a big improvement, but I have
seen nothing added in DXP/2004 that could not have been left inside the 99SE
GUI (no retraining, no new skills needed, just more productive tools), but
as said above, that would have been a lot harder for developers to meet the
UI requirements at the same time as considering the needs of the PCB
designer.

How many software developers do you know that would prefer DOS boxes brought
back and return everyone to command line entries :-) ? Er, no thanks. Sound
familiar (query language, scripting...)

Altium have did it very badly IMO (glad I am not alone) to the point that
the pain is in some cases, simply not worth the gain, due to making simple
things harder (un-natural for non software familiar people) to do.

Like others, I converted many of my customers from other vendors products to
98/99 purely on its ease of use, short learning curve, stability and I would
happily have stood my ground to defend statements I made to promote
P98/P99SE when challenged.

I cannot in honesty do this with DXP/2004, I would need to respond that
unless you do FPGA or need Multi Channel design, you do not gain that much
more. I think Altium have seriously underestimated this type of 'sale by
recommendation' outlet. Big mistake. I guess they can expect the same from
the PCAD community when they move them to the DXP platform.

It's a hard and sometimes lonely path to get a good reputation, it's a lot
easier to get a bad one. Which path Altium are on, only time will tell.

Could I go on about this all day, yes, but that would be boring for all as
it is really repetition of all that has gone before as well as being ignored
by Altium because it is not what Altium likes to hear.

John






 Reagan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- Original Message --
> From: "Brooks,Bill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date:  Fri, 9 Apr 2004 09:12:42 -0700 
> 
> >Ray,
> >
> >I made the mistake that you are considering before. The group I was 
> >with in Temecula bought Pads on my misguided recommendation... I was 
> >taken in by the demo. The guys made it look so easy, then when I got 
> >the software and realized they sold me a package that was 
> stripped down 
> >compared to the one they demonstrated... I saw red.  If I wanted the 
> >package that did all the fancy stuff like interactive 
> routing and push 
> >and shove placement etc, I would ha

Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:51 PM 4/10/2004, Christopher Coley wrote:
I am getting fairly fed up with all this negativism towards Altium.
With all due respect, if the negativism is leading to digestive 
disturbances, the sensible thing is to stop reading the thread which is 
clearly, on the face, about alternatives to Altium and thus invites, among 
other things, negative comment

If instead of all the griping here you were to send clear E-Mails to Altium
(Not spam them!) but clear E-Mails that describe the problem and how to
replicate it I am sure they will do something.  In other words the griping
is getting you anywhere.
Nowhere, I think Mr. Coley intended to write.

Many of the issues which underly the gripes have been described extensively 
here and on the DXP list. Both lists are read by Altium personnel. If there 
is an Altium policy that, to consider a suggestion for improvement or a bug 
report (that is easily reproducible), it must be sent directly to them, 
well, the policy should be changed immediately. Users talk with each other 
about usage issues, and for Altium to be able to eavesdrop on that 
conversation (and to participate in it on the DXP list) is a business 
opportunity.

Some users don't seem to know how to engage in constructive criticism, and, 
to be fair, some may be frustrated in that their efforts at such criticism 
seem to have been ignored. Altium, compared to many other companies, has 
made great strides in being able to engage in open communication with its 
customers, but there is still far to go, much more that could be done. 
Compared to many other companies, I'd give them an A or a B. Compared to 
what could be done, a D. Most companies would flunk completely

Now, is this relevant to user support. I claim that it is. The 
consideration of a move to a competing product *is* a user issue. This list 
is not an Altium list, it is a Protel EDA *user* list. Support (i.e., 
questions about how I can do this or that) is an important aspect of this 
list, but user needs are not limited to that, and there is no better place 
to discuss alternatives to Protel. "Within broad list definitions" and "No 
better place" is my basic standard of relevance...





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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:44 AM 4/10/2004, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[re Altium's essay into software maintenance fees]
And why did we reject the idea?  I can not speak for you, but I can speak 
for myself.  There were two reasons.  First, when I bought 99SE, it came 
with support included in the price I paid for it.  For them to all of 
sudden decide that they were going to renege on it is a violation of the 
contract and I would not stand for it on principle.
They did not "decide ... to renege" on their contract, although many users 
took the announcement that way. The announcement was clumsy, to be sure. 
The service program they announced was one which, for an annual fee, was to 
provide upgrades in addition to ordinary support. It is possible that 
future purchasers would have seen some reduction in support if they had not 
paid the fee, but there was pretty clearly no plan to cut back on the kind 
of included support that was already being provided, i.e., service packs 
with bug fixes for a limited period of time, and discounts on upgrades to 
the next version.

Most CAD companies in the Altium class have annual maintenance fees. The 
Protel model was not all that different: "free" maintenance -- for a 
limited time -- and upgrade fees. If one looked at the upgrade costs over a 
substantial period, they were comparable to what other companies were 
charging for maintenance (and they are still that way, though a little 
cheaper perhaps).

Altium saw that the change was not being taken well by users and backed 
off. In reality, the backing off was simply a redefinition of the 
maintenance program, making it clear that the program was an optional 
addition rather than a substitution. They still offered Total Support, they 
just made it clear that this was something being sold for valued added, not 
something previously included being taken away to be replaced with a 
regular payment.

When I was making my original Protel purchase decision, I researched a 
number of CAD systems. Among the ones I considered at the time was Cadence 
Allegro Workstation. It was going to cost $10,000, as I recall, for a 
somewhat limited seat, on a special deal. They did not mention that $1500 
maintenance was in addition, and was obligatory *even for the first year*, 
i.e., you could not buy just the seat, you had to buy the first years 
maintenance in addition. I'm sure I would have found out when I placed the 
purchase order!

But I was able to get into Protel 98 for $1995 because of a friend's 
un-upgraded Autotrax license And it was $700 more to move to Protel 99, 
shortly before the SE release, which was free, of course.

The problem with DXP, it is fairly widely acknowledged, is that its 
increased power has come with an increased complexity which has not yet 
been sufficiently been compensated by ease-of-use enhancements. An 
experienced 99SE user is going to face a serious retraining hit at this 
time. The general report from those who bite the bullet and learn the DXP 
way is that it is worth it, *but*, quite obviously, if you are going to 
have to retrain, the time is ripe to consider other systems.

I suspect that retraining to one of the other major systems is going to be 
quite a bit more difficult than retraining to DXP, but my point here is 
that by issuing DXP the way they did, Altium has set up a potential cause 
of user loss. I'm sure they are taking a hit from it, but how serious is 
the hit, I would have little way of knowing. This issue is not going to 
affect new DXP users as much as it is going to affect 99SE upgraders.

The real sleeper would be the number of 99SE-DXP upgrades that are 
gathering dust. Sales might look good now, only to collapse with the next 
revision as those users move to a competing system. This won't be happening 
with new DXP users, I think.

DXP 2004 is improved in many ways, and might ameliorate the situation, but 
I think the central retraining issue has not been adequately addressed. The 
Query system, in particular, is clearly more powerful in most ways, but it 
is also a formidable barrier to a 99SE user who is just trying to do a 
simple global edit. Sure, eventually he'll learn how to do things quickly 
in DXP (though maybe still not quite so quickly), but that barrier can be 
quite frustrating. I am not the only one who is reminded of OrCAD Layout.

  Secondly, I might have been convinced to go along with the change 
because of changing business climate.  However, the problem for Altium 
was that I had been occasionally calling the support hotline and knew 
that there was not much support there.  I am certainly not going to pay 
for something if I was not going to receive any value or frequently 
receive wrong answers.
This comment completely neglects the major component of Total Support: 
included upgrades. If Mr. Wasti had purchased Total Support, he wuuld have 
received the DXP and DXP 2004 upgrades without additional charge, and I 
think he might have the Nanoboard (a nominal $995 

[PEDA] Marking a pad pattern as BGA

[Christopher Coley]

I have a pad pattern I copied from a library that was a BGA so that I could
add some additional keep out markings and pin marking and some mounting
holes for a BGA socket.  Now when I place the pattern on a board it is now
listed as a PGA (Pin Grid Array) and so the fanout will no longer work. 

Any ideas on how Protel decides what is BGA and what is PGA from flags or
pad patterns/

Chris




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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Christopher Coley]

I am getting fairly fed up with all this negativism towards Altium.  The
product they have released is very complex and is bound to have bugs, just
look at the bugs in Microsoft products, and for the most part they are doing
something about them.  

Don't get me wrong they do have their problems, But in general please tell
me where I can get an all encoumpasing product that is comparible at the
same price.  No I don't mean list them I have seen the lists here hundreds
of times!  This is meant to be a thought provoking exercise, 

If instead of all the griping here you were to send clear E-Mails to Altium
(Not spam them!) but clear E-Mails that describe the problem and how to
replicate it I am sure they will do something.  In other words the griping
is getting you anywhere.

Now as to a lot of the problems they are usually User generated (Don't flame
me for this) and a clear discription of the problem here or on the Altium
boards will probably get you an answer as to work around it.

Chris.

P.S. I have been using Protel since V1.0 and although it has issues it work
very well for my company.  As a side note I have never called support so I
can comment on that.  But I have always found a work around or that I was
doing something wrong.

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 11:45 PM
> To: Protel EDA Forum
> Subject: Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite 
> recommendation?
> 
> Brooks,Bill wrote:
> 
> >This is pretty damning commentary. And maybe a bit 'rash'... 
> >
> What exactly do you mean by calling the commentary "rash" ?
> 
> >Logically, their business model tried to change awhile back... they 
> >tried to introduce a system whereby support services would be the 
> >revenue stream to replace new sales of PCB software here in the 
> >U.S. Protel failed to make that happen... we as a body 
> rejected the idea.
> >
> And why did we reject the idea?  I can not speak for you, but 
> I can speak for myself.  There were two reasons.  First, when 
> I bought 99SE, it came with support included in the price I 
> paid for it.  For them to all of sudden decide that they were 
> going to renege on it is a violation of the contract and I 
> would not stand for it on principle.  Secondly, I might have 
> been convinced to go along with the change because of 
> changing business climate.  However, the problem for Altium 
> was that I had been occasionally calling the support hotline 
> and knew that there was not much support there.  I am 
> certainly not going to pay for something if I was not going 
> to receive any value or frequently receive wrong answers.  
> Maybe other people refused to go along for other reasons, but 
> this was my reasoning.  Their attitude of "We have great news 
> for you.  We have decided to upgrade our service, so the same 
> quality service that you were promised for free, you now get 
> to pay for" 
> did not go over well either.
> 
> >I think Protel has a market... it's guys and gals like us that are 
> >willing to hold on... but nobody can continue to wait forever.
> >
> Altium's main market is people who have never heard of Protel 
> before.  I doubt they are getting much repeat business.  It 
> is hard to translate sayings into other languages, but here's 
> one that bears a lot on Altium's situation for the last 5 or 
> so years:  Being bad is OK, having a bad reputation is what 
> is really bad.  Altium has acquired a very bad reputation 
> among its users because of poor and short sighted management 
> and now it is finding it hard to get any support from the user base. 
>  That may be its undoing.
> 
> Hamid
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 




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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[Rich Thompson]

 I got my 2004 disks last week, so far I have found it to be very good. Much
better than DXP.  The new schematic wiring modes are great, real time
savers, and the sch display is neater too.  PCB hasn't changed much compared
to dxp but I like that side mostly anyway.  The whole package 'seems'
finished now, where as dxp didn't.  It is >much< better than 99SE, I
wouldn't go back to that if you paid me.  Sorry if that sounds like an
advert ;-)

Rich

PS.  The router still isn't much good for multilayer designs, but for double
sided stuff it works okay. We don't go below 7mil track/space though.

-Original Message-
From: Cliff Gerhard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
I went back to Protel and made the transition from 99SE to DXP. I don't know
why they didn't just fix 99SE instead of basically starting over.
Trying to use DXP at first made me feel like a complete idiot, it is a
resource hog (my 1GHZ computer is too slow?) and the software still isn't
quite finished (I am still waiting for 2004, hopefully it is better).  This
has been very painful, but at least it wasn't $40k a seat!  

I hope Protel is not bailing out of the "shrink wrapped" CAD market.
There isn't much else out there for us who can't afford (or don't need) the
high dollar tools.  If they are putting all their eggs in the embedded
system business I can't see them surviving too much longer.
Then I guess I'll be back to that familiar place of having to pick a new CAD
system.  



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Re: [PEDA] Good schematic/PCB development suite recommendation?

[hwasti]

Matt Pobursky wrote:

As for me and my PCB designer -- we've decided to use Protel 99SE until 
it becomes impractical for us.

That is where I was last July after giving DXP a try.  However, I got a 
project out of the blue that I was not sure could be done in 99SE.  At 
that point, it was too late to try and switch to a new package.  I ended 
up doing the project in 99SE with much pain.  While I do not see a 
similar project on my horizon, I have learned my lesson.  It is best to 
upgrade on your own schedule rather than wait to be forced to move on 
someone else's schedule.  That is what I intend to move to the next CAD 
system even though 99SE is quite useable for most of what I am doing 
today and what I see on my horizon.

Who knows,
they might even offer a deal to convert registered users of other EDA
tools to their software? Much as Protel did with Orcad users several
years ago (when there was a revolt going on after Cadence bought
Orcad). That could be big trouble for Altium. 

That would be the final nail in Altium's coffin.  If I were to make a 
prediction, that is how I see things ending for Altium.  Some 
competition, either someone moving up from below, or someone moving down 
from above will start offering credit for a Protel license and Altium 
will not be able to deal with the mass desertion.

Hamid



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