Best Schematic entry cad?

The old DOS Orcad was the best one ever created by Man. It had automatic scrolling, block dragging and block moving. It also had a good macro feature that you could use to quickly repeat operations. Many operations could be repeated by just pressing the "R" key. This was ideal for placing data and address lines. They had a clever mouse and keyboard interface that worked well if you used one hand on the mouse and the other to press keys. With a little practice, you could really fly through stuff.

The newer Windows based programs claim that you can enter your schematic just by clicking the mouse. They are correct in the same sense that you can type War And Peace in Morse Code just by clicking. It takes many more actions to enter the schematic than the old Orcad required.

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge

Pulsonix has very nice schematic entry:

It requires far fewer mouse clicks etc. than any other product I've used, and is especially good for entering things like bus connections.

Leon

For me it was awful. Especial in conjunction with the layout program. At that time OrCAD became for me NoCAD.

The most effective ECAD Program I ever had was HiWire II from Wintek. See

It is a pity that they stopped further development, so today it is unfortunately outdated.

Meanwhile I've learned to deal with Orcad V10. It can quite a lot, but is also hard to use. Fortunatly I have good support from the Swiss dealer.

I gave a short try on DXP, which has a nicer appearance. However I decided not to spend the time needed to learn it, for getting at the same level I have now on Orcad.

schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:79GDd.2721$ snipped-for-privacy@fe04.lga...

Hello Wendell, if you have to choose a schematic entry program, the decision is primarily based on the the target application. If you finally want to make a PCB, then you choose the PCB program and live with the schematic entry program that comes with it. It's nonsense to buy any schematic drawing program and then later buy a PCB-layout program from another vendor.

Please be more specific about your target.

Best Regards, Helmut

What did you find wrong with it? I am very surprised that anyone could find any fault with it.

Now, there's a truely awful program. It is hard to use and the UI is very buggy. I briefly tried to use it. I found it near imposible to enter information such as package sizes. It doesn't have a macro feature that works so you have to manually go through the process over and over. To make matters worse, the same sequence of key strokes and mouse moves does not produce the same result each time. You have to stop and look to see where the cursor ended up before you can start typing. When it bombed out completely, I gave up and went back to the DOS one.

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge

In article , Helmut Sennewald wrote: [...]

I disagree. Everyone should use DOS Orcad for schematics and PADS 2K for the PCBs. Suggesting anything else is doing a disservice to humanity.

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge

Ken Smith stated:

Does DOS Orcad has a *really easy to use* symbol editor? Ideally I would draw the package, put the pins and forget it.

(EAGLE managed to make symbol editing a very complicated task...)

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Chaos Master®, posting from Canoas, Brazil - 29.55° S / 51.11° W

"People told me I can\'t dress like a fairy. 
 I say, I\'m in a rock band and I can do what the hell I want!" 
                                                   -- Amy Lee

Running on: 300MHz Pentium, 128MB RAM, 8.4GB HD, 56k modem, Windows 98 
SE
            Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Gravity 2.70, Wget as downloader

The library editor knows about two types of parts:

(1) Block parts: With a block part you just get a rectangular box with pins around the outside. This is good for things like RAM chips.

(2) Graphical parts: A graphical part is made up of lines and arcs. You can also fill areas but there are problems with the filling method on plots so I don't use it.

There can be up to 16 parts in a package and it keeps track of the pin numbers for each of the parts independantly. This allows you to have a package were some pins do not appear in some of the parts. Power pins, for example are usually onely shown on part "A".

It handles things like diodes where the pins are "A" and "C" by saying there are "zero" parts in the package. With zero parts, the pin numbering goes away and pin naming takes over.

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge

Ken Smith stated:

This is exactly what is missing from EAGLE, or I am too blind to not find it on EAGLE.

Looks good... I will try to find DOS OrCAD in one of those 'old software' sites.

[]s

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Chaos Master®, posting from Canoas, Brazil - 29.55° S / 51.11° W

"People told me I can\'t dress like a fairy. 
 I say, I\'m in a rock band and I can do what the hell I want!" 
                                                   -- Amy Lee

Running on: 300MHz Pentium, 128MB RAM, 8.4GB HD, 56k modem, Windows 98 
SE
            Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Gravity 2.70, Wget as downloader

See my notes and links to some 60 ECAD programs at

Terry Pinnell Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK

Amen, brother.

It is a bit clunky in EAGLE, but it does work.

0) If editing a device, save it and close it. 1) Open a dev (pac?) which contains the stuff you want to copy. 2) Group and copy. 3) Close the dev. 4) Open the dev (pac?) you want to edit. 5) Paste what's on the Library Editor Clipboard. (Ah. It's a separate buffer!) 6) Save the pac. 7) Register the pac with the dev; save and close the dev.

Try this one.

Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see: Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things)

Hi Ken,

Agree. I used DOS-Orcad for more than a decade. But I must confess that I just bought a copy of Eagle after trying out their freebie version. Here is why:

DOS-Orcad becomes increasingly cumbersome for me on Windows machines. Also on some printers although it allows you to create your own driver (not exactly my favorite task...). But most of all I like the seamless integration of a layout package in Eagle. Really handy for hairy stuff like RF gear or switchers when you detect that something won't fly in the layout and you can quickly change your circuitry. Not that I do much in layout but I want to be able to tell the layouter "this is the way I want the switcher area arranged". Then there is the huge and growing number of netlists it can generate, and the user language programs you can write if you want it to do some really unusual stuff. It also allows to mimic Orcad's nice macro scheme, such as the "R" key.

With respect to lib symbol editing DOS-Orcad wins hands down in my opinion. Mainly because it allows block mode. Also, Eagle lacks hierarchical sheet structures which Orcad always had. That's my biggest gripe with Eagle. But when I made my list of pros and cons of each, Eagle won this time. But it somehow feels like replacing that old faithful truck that never let you down with some ritzy new vehicle.

Regards, Joerg

Boris Mohar stated:

GREAT! Will be downloading this soon.

[]s

-- Chaos Master®, posting from Canoas, Brazil - 29.55° S / 51.11° W

"People told me I can't dress like a fairy. I say, I'm in a rock band and I can do what the hell I want!" -- Amy Lee

Running on: 300MHz Pentium, 128MB RAM, 8.4GB HD, 56k modem, Windows 98 SE Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Gravity 2.70, Wget as downloader

I'll agree that Orcad SDT386+ is a wonderful schematic program. It is my primary schematic editor. Folks have released new VESA video drivers, HP Laserjet drivers, and modified Orcad utilities. You can find these items on:

(obsolete group)

The new DOS Orcad group is at:

One of the nice features of SDT is making parts in an ASCII text editor. You can copy & paste the pin assignments from the data sheet and edit with a text editor that supports macros like UltraEdit or Semware's QEdit. Xilinx publishes an ASCII text file with just the pinouts of their parts. Sure saves a load of time when doing 100+ pin parts.

Hi Jeff,

Yes, it took me a while but I figured it out. Still, Eagle doesn't offer block mode which suffices for most chips. Eagle forces you to do most of it with mouse or trackball, like modeling in a mechanical CAD package. It's ok, it's just that after half a day of doing that the lower portion of the arm starts to hurt and then you really have to go easy because carpal tunnel inflammation does not heal quickly. I find that even chopping firewood is easier on my arms ;-)

In Orcad I did this mostly without a mouse. Actually, my first laptop (that trusty old late 80's Wang) didn't have a mouse and when on the road or rather on the train I did not carry one along.

Regards, Joerg

Are you printing the schematic or layout?

Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see: Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things)

FWIT , I just d/l Pulsonix Demo. I placed 3 = 16pin DIPs, 10 resistors. Now try pinting. The print out is not 1:1. How the heck do I get a 1:1 print out of just these few parts?

I wrote that I placed 3 IC's and some resistors. This means I'm placing components on a PCB, Printed Circuit Board. Not a schematic. A schematic is in reference to a circuit layout , which is not a PCB. I'm not using any netlist, I'm making a PCB w/o a schematic, imagine that, I don't need a schematic right now.