Downloading OrCAD Capture

GIGO :-) ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Yeah, that's what I figure.

That's some amazing bloatware Martha! It's super! Why it cleans, it scours, and it cooks 20% superer than that other bloatware.

I need it for a project, so into the depths I go...

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Trust me. Every one is crap. We just switched to 16.3 (from 15.7). Other than a *stupid* face-lift it's garbage. The schematic area is smaller than it was before, with more junk around it. They should allow the screens to undock so they can be placed on different screens.

You mean something like the "Place Part" panel? It does undock -- just drag on its title bar and place it wherever you want; I normally have the actual schematic take up one monitor and then stick that panel on the next monitor.

Of course, why you can't *resize* the undocked panel is anyon'e guess; that would actually be, you know, *useful!*

The GUI updates for me are somewhere between "different but no better" to "maybe a little better" compared to 15.7. It's kinda what I expect from Cadence with ORCAD -- dicking around with the GUI is relatively easy and "looks cool" to, e.g., some manager who never has to actually use the tool, whereas actually improving the core functionality of the program requires rather more effort that is often only appreicated engineers who often aren't the ones driving the purchasing decision.

---Joel

I quit at PSpice v15.7, after paying for years of "updates" that contained no functional changes.

I use PSpice Schematics, NOT OrCAD Capture, though I can convert to Capture format if a customer requests.

I also have managed a fairly smooth way of drawing with PSpice Schematics but using the LTspice engine for simulation.

Principal trick to getting all your controls into the LTspice .CIR file:

ANY template that has (for example)...

.INC DummyFile.txt \n VDC Vdd 0 5.5V

Is forced into .CIR by the PSpice netlister, rather than in the .NET file.

(Any template beginning with "." goes into .CIR)

Thus PSpice Schematics is only used for netlisting circuit components, and the LTspice .CIR file set all simulation functions.

Sweet :-)

Now! If I can figure out how to have PSpice Probe read LTspice data files, I'll have the best of both worlds... PSpice's frontend and post-processor, but with LTspice's speed :-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

I couldn't get it undocked, though it is a natural way to do things these days (FrameMaker did all of this in the early-90's). I'll have to try it again when I get back Tuesday. Do all the panels undock? There are several that I have to switch back and forth between that would be great spread over several screens.

It seems that it would be harder to NOT allow that.

To me the "different but no better" is more of "a whole lot worse, for no good reason". The icons aren't obvious and are "soft" (fuzzy, hard to read). I suppose you're right, they had to make *some* change to justify an upgrade. The only reason I upgraded is the layout guy upgraded to make Allegro happy, then he kept locking me out of my schematics (the stupid thing "upgrades" the file format when you *enter* the schematic).

Hi Keith,

As far as I've noticed, yes. ...although windows that look like "regular" schematic windows such as "Place Database Part" can't be moved outside of the main ORCAD window. Some windows/panels such as the file/hierarchy explorer window and the session have options if you right-click their title bars for docked or not (MDI child)... although I don't think this is actually needed for any particular functionality (just makes it faster, perhaps, to dock/undock if you do so repeatedly, I guess).

I find that in many programs I never end up using the icons, since they're not as obvious as looking through the menus for the same functionality... which then usually lists the shortcut key that I'll begin to remember if I use that function often anyway.

Yes... you have to keep doing File->Save As Capture 16.2 design to obtain some semblance of backwards compatibility. (We learned this the hard way after wanting to have folks be able to just download the *much smaller than 4 CDs* ORCAD viewer program, but -- no surprise here! -- Cadence hasn't updated it in years and it just steadfastly refuses to open 16.3 format files.)

---Joel

That's why I stick with the old DOS Orcad SDT386+ schematic editor. A few updates by others, like a GUI, have made this a semi-modern tool. Efficient to use, doesn't crash, and it's easy to write your own netlist converters.

AFAIK the Orcad file format didn't change from 9.2 until 16.3.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

TADA!

DOSBox rules!

not

some

in

Which makes me wonder, since they tout the viewer on their web site and obviously their standard operating procedures failed to flag a need to update that, what else might have fallen through the cracks?

Nah, I'll stay with Cadsoft for now. They recently promised that they (finally!) plan to provide hierachical sheet structures in the naxt major release. Upon which I'll send them a nice big check because then this CAD is IMHO as close to perfect as it gets. Yeah, I know, now Jeff will come with his DRM cruzade :-)

Oh yes it did. Download Myriad viewer and try to load a 16.3 file. Then, after clicking away the error message where the schematic should have been but wasn't, load an old version file.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

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Which is a valid argument. It has made me decide to stay away from Eagle. What if the DRM feature is triggered by accident? No software is 100% error free and Murphy dictates a problem will occur at the worst possible time.

Weird. I have no problems at all moving libraries and files between versions.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Huh-zah!

...as I will with any vendor who puts surreptitious gotchas into their products.

cruzade?? Did I miss something--or did you?

the

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It isn't. As long as you do not copy schematics from dubious sources. I have never met anyone who uses Eagle professionally and ran into that issue.

It isn't, but it has yet to cause a DRM issue on its own. Somehow a CAD vendor has to protect their rights. And I do _not_ wish they ever change to theway it's done on Mathcad. I just bought that and it took a solid week to get the license going, doesn't get more cumbersome than that. Whereas Cadsoft juts chucks you the keys and trusts you. Trust? What a concept ... :-)

Again, try Myriad viewer, then you'll see it. Or take a schematic, edit it with 16.3, store in 16.3 format and then try to open that with version 9 or something. You will be surprised.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

Ok, often spelled crusade. See, you just started another one :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

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You *don't* want to know.

I'll let you know, in a couple of weeks, if OrCAD 16.3 can do hierarchical schematics (perfect test coming up). Just had a thought, OrCAD touts their FPGA abilities. HTH do they do FPGAs without hierarchy?

I thought they'd changed too. I tried loading a 10.x file and it wouldn't but thought that it might have been corrupted along the way (hadn't opened it in years).

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T'is why I abandoned Orcad. Too many crashes. Switched to Eagle, no crashes. It's amazing, Cadsoft's size is miniscule compared to Cadence yet the quality of their software is superb. They just never understood some of the necessities for business, such as the need for a hierarchy (until recently).

Oh, I've seen flat sheet structures with dozens of pages. Very hard to navigate for anyone other than the original designer. The sad part is that Orcad-SDT from the late 80's could do hierarchies beautifully. Nearly all my designs were done that way. Then Orcad was acquired and it seems they broke it.

That's the beauty of Orcad-SDT. It doesn't care how old a file is, I could easily open my designs from 1989. With software it's like with wine, older is usually better :-)

Which is one of the reasons why I stuck to Windows XP.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

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Ever tried to install Orcad with floating seat network licensing? Fortunately a co worker came up with a cracked copy. Since then I only buy software which preferably doesn't come with dongles. If it does come with a dongle (or must be attached to a MAC address and so), a cracked copy must be available otherwise it is a no go. I don't mind paying for software but I don't want to be punished for it!

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

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Our OrCAD 16.3 copies are network licensed (we had a mix before). It took our IT guys a week to get it working. They didn't get it working with P-Spice

15.something that was node-locked (Cadence promised it would work). We basically lost P-Spice (it wasn't mine).