Hello Everyone
Do Protel still have demo versions of their probucts? I had a look on their web site and could not find any. I'm at college and am learning PCB design and we use protel but it is a very old version 2.8 Thank you.
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They provide a demo on CD. The last downloadable demo AFAIK was the Protel99SE demo.
Regards Anton Erasmus
I think that's the one I saw. Utterly shockingly bad piece of software. Not even the tiniest attempt to make it a Windows program which suggests to me you're better off sticking with the DOS version.
Graham
Op Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:18:39 +0100 schreef Pooh Bear:
even
From other comments in this newsgroup I had the impression that Protel 99 SE Service Pack 6 was pretty good.
Frank
even
If you're happy with the mouse doing nothing other than moving a pointer around you might also be happy with Eagle which is free.
We had a sub-contractor do a board re-layout for us using Protel and I used the demo copy to look at it. I couldn't make any sense of it ) Protel nott he board that is ), whereas something like Pads/powerpcb seemd intuitive instantly and I could use that to transfer info back to another subbie very easily.
Graham
No. It's EAGLE *Lite* (the limited *demo* version) that is available free for *non-commercial* use. The pricing for payware EAGLE, however, is very reasonable.
OTOH, Kicad and gEDA, being GPL'd, *ARE* free (gratis and libre).
One definitely has to take Pooh Bear's comments with a grain of salt.
Here is the salt. A true Windows based program (P99SE) is a piece of crap simply because he couldn't figure it out after a brief attempt. 'Probably' without reading the manuals or trying the tutorials because he didn't have time for such things. However a 1990s DOS engine running under a phoney weak Windows GUI is an intuitive Windows program (PADs)? I would have to think that Pooh Bear was mostly messed up by his familiarity with PADs, their clunky interface and convoluted manner of doing things. Happens to everyone that is used to one CAD program and attempts quickly switching to another. Been there, done that several times myself. There simply isn't a standard for CAD program interface/operations so one has to relearn the basics each time one changes programs.
I use both programs (PADs since 1991 (initially DOS only, then under Windows GUI) and P99SE since 2000) and will take Protel's interface over PADs any day, they are very different at their core. However, 15 years of development will do that as opposed to simply repeatedly rebranding the product for the past nearly 10 years and never writing it as a true Windows program to start with.
As for the other question, yes, P99SE with SP6 is quite stable and very usable. There are a lot of professional Protel users that still refuse to upgrade away from P99SE w/ SP6 even 4 years after significant upgrades and new features were made available. Some that have upgraded readily jump back to P99SE because they still prefer working in it, when they don't need the new features/capabilities.
-- Sincerely, Brad Velander. "Pooh Bear" wrote in message news:448E7B81.90E74C42@hotmail.com... > > > If you\'re happy with the mouse doing nothing other than moving a pointer > around you > might also be happy with Eagle which is free. > > We had a sub-contractor do a board re-layout for us using Protel and I > used the demo > copy to look at it. I couldn\'t make any sense of it ) Protel nott he board > that is ), > whereas something like Pads/powerpcb seemd intuitive instantly and I could > use that to > transfer info back to another subbie very easily. > > Graham
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