Orcad is a total piece of dog crap!

While such program crashes are annoying and disruptive, at least you didn't lose much work, since you save regularly (don't you?).

Doesn't it give you the option to autosave every minute or so, like Protel????

No idea (I've never used Orcad). But I prefer to choose to save myself

- I've never liked autosaves. You just have to have a habit of saving often.

I disagree (with the subject line).

I have been using Orcad 386 schematic capture for 15 years. It is powerful, fast and never crashes. But perhaps you are talking about layout?

Alan Nishioka :-)

So you are using a 15 year old program? I don't have that program. I have a windows version 10.3. It has numerous features that cause crashes. I wouldn't say they are frequent, but it is often enough that I hate using it. Part of that is the closed format for the files and such. So there is no way to pull information out of the schematic except for the limited means provided by Cadence.

I tried learning Orcad layout once, but like most layout programs it is very convoluted with roots in the dark days of DOS. I gave up on that and now I use FreePCB. I haven't switched to an open source schematic program. But once I complete my current work, that will be near the top of my list of things that will help me get rid of Orcad!

Rick

Yes, when Orcad first came out with a Windows version, my colleages had problems with it, so I didn't upgrade. Later, I never got around to it because it didn't offer any advantages to me (And they still complained about it).

I'm sorry for making light of your frustrating situation. I just thought it funny because Orcad used to be so good.

Alan Nishioka

See if you can find an older version. IMnsHO, the last good version was the last "pre-Cadence" version: 9.2. IIRC, this version was written by OrCAD, and all Cadence did was to change the icon/logo.

It still has bugs, but over the years I've been trained (much like Pavlov's dogs) to just "not do" the things that make it crash.

SDT-386 is a great version, but it doesn't run in all DOS emulators; you need to have a true DOS system to run it. It was the last version that truly understood the difference between "drag" and "move".

And sadly, Cadence thinks that they put out a quality product. Delusions of adequacy.

G.

That appears to be the problem right there. I was never happy with any of the Windows versions of OrCad when I used one at a client. SDT-III under DOS was the way to go, best schematic capture since sliced bread. Then it was ported to Windows and IMHO downhill from there, so I switched away.

Please let us know what you picked and how it fares. I am currently using Eagle but about ready to switch (again!) because it doesn't offer a hierarchical sheet structure and the manufacturer does not seem to understand the importance of that. However, I want the next switch to stick since all your old schematics and libraries become essentially worthless thanks to the fact that EDIF was a mere flash in the pan.

Question: I still have my old SDT-III license. Are there any hard limits you run into with DOS-OrCad these days? Such as printing, display, netlist issues and such?

I am pretty happy with FreePCB. I have used it to design two boards, one a production board and another a test fixture for that board. Both came out ok with only a small error on the test fixture because when you do a copper pour and it is sliced by a trace, the software has no way to inform you that the portions are not connected or that an IC pin is now isolated. It still reports the IC pin as being connected to the net if it is connected to the isolated region of the copper pour.

I am now working on an update to the production board and I am finding it to be difficult to import changes to the net list without FreePCB ripping up the existing traces that are changed. Some of the changes can be made in a stepwise fashion allowing me to incorporate them without having to do a lot of rerouting. But other changes are more difficult. I am trying to edit the layout file manually, but the format is not fully documented and although it is text, it is not immediately clear. On the plus side, the support forum is excellent and I expect to have all the info I need in a few hours or at most a day.

I would say that the only real down side to this tool is that for the most part it is a one-man project and changes happen slowly. Also, you may not be able to convince Allan that your request is useful enough to make it into the code base. I'm not up on Windows coding enough to tweek the code myself or I would make a few changes. It is only available for Windows, but reports are that it runs fine under the various tools for running Windows programs under Linux.

Rick

Thanks, Rick, very interesting. I wish Allan would team up with other guys who can and want to program. He seems not to be a young lad anymore and having bought an interest in an airplane means he's going to be busy in other hobbies.

gEDA would be great but they've made some staunch statements in the direction of Windows users along the lines of "Either they hang up and move to Linux or forget it". Without realizing that much of what us guys must use plain does not work on Linux. So it'll remain a niche product.

I don't recall saying this. I've personally tried to be open and honest about our Windows support - it runs, but not as well as on Linux/Mac, and we're working on improving it, but we don't use Windows ourselves so progress is slow.

I recently convinced a windows-centric friend of mine to help with the task, maybe we'll see improvement in the near future.

It was Stuart:

Quote "Also, patches which I -- and others -- have made to gschem & some other programs have probably broken its ability to compile under Windows. Therefore, you are currently SOL."

At the end he kind of sums it up pretty harshly:

Quote "In summary: Engineers too lazy or ignorant to move off Windows should continue to pay $$$$ for lousy commercial software -- it's their punishment for laziness and ignorance!"

The main reason we are windows-centric is that a lot of stuff we have to use isn't available any other way. VMs aren't always the answer and they are extremely resource-hungry. Then there is hardware. I recently pointed out a dead-simple and dirt cheap USB device (basically a switch) that would have fixed a German poster's problem in milliseconds. However, he used Linux, could not use it and now had to take a weekend to design his own. In corporate life we can't do that.

gEDA could become really popular just like OpenOffice did. But without a Windows executable it will not. There are too many folks like me who know a lot about electronic circuits but next to nothing about programming. Ok, I can program a uC to some extent but that's about it.

Note that that message is 3.5 years old. It also says that PCB is unix-only and requires X11, neither of which is currently true.

I understand - I have lab equipment that only works under XP.

Maybe there is hope then. It's just that rash statements like that do not exactly instill confidence.

And you probably have the liberty to switch that. I am a consultant and have to connect to stuff at numerous clients, no liberty to switch here.

Try upgrading to 10.5, as it fixes most if not all of the crashing problems in 10.3.

Mike

Which brings up a question: Is there a (reputable) dealer that sells older versions? All I can find is the new version at Ema-Eda for USD1729, they don't give a version number. Seems you are forced to buy maintenance whether you want it or not. Great, huh? Considering that I paid USD495 for my old OrCad license I find that rather outrageous for a schematic capture software.

I have moved away from OrCad long ago but want to be able to read and revise things in client's schematics. Of course I assume Cadence will make sure that the millisecond a new version comes out I'll be toast but my clients are mostly rather savvy about upgrades. IOW they don't do it just because a new version came out.

problems

Well, we have always maintained maintenance on our packages. Many CADD companies price upgrades to be the same price as if you had paid maintenance since your last upgrade, so there is not much of a savings to be had.

We currently don't plan to upgrade further than 10.5 as we also have Altium Designer, which is supposed to read OrCad schematics. Our plan is to dump OrCad as well, in favour of only paying maintenance on one package, instead of two.

Mike

Have you considered any of the open source tools? I have not yet switched schematic capture, but I am using FreePCB and I find the support is much better in the user forum than I have gotten with *any* commercial product.

When I my current project is complete, I plan to evaluate several of the more popular open source schematic tools.

Rick