Circuit Lab

Why would you do that when LTspice exists? And that editor is even more crude than LTspice... which is bad enough ;-)

You folks need to drop by so I can show you what a _real_ schematic editor can do. ...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.

I can see some utility in that web based-apps are more readily accessible to anyone than a piece of software (LTspice) that only runs on PCs: They're targeting a "hobbyist/educational" environment, so they're likely to run into Mac users (maybe even a few Linux users) and people who aren't allowed to install software on the PCs they're using.

Many "modern" tools are rather worse than the old ones... I had to submit a bug report to Ansys that, within their circuit simulator (Ansoft Designer) flipping any schematic object vertically would completely destroy the positioning of any attributes (such as a resistor's value, its reference designator, etc. -- it would move them to places nowhere near the correct flipped position). It's clear that many of the authors of today's CAD tools never actually use them for production work -- and even those who do often don't stress them.

Even in a schematic with no more than a dozen or so components, Ansoft Designer takes about a solid second to copy and paste a component -- you really have to wonder what it's doing; it truly does slow down the schematic entry process, which I find ridiculous given how powerful PCs are today.

(People seem to expect more and more features out of CAD software, but they actually tend to use fewer and fewer of them, as they're less and less time to spend with any one tool in many cases. The result is software that's crappier and crappier but has a nice glossy brochure that tells you it can do everything under the sun...

LTSpice is a nice exception in that while Mike Engelhardt is consciously choosing not to implement various features I'd sure appreciate, what he has chosen to implement is generally very fast and rock solid.)

---Joel

I also meant to add...

From CircuitLab's FAQ:

"At this time, CircuitLab is entirely free-of-charge.

In the future, as the tool continues to grow and evolve, we may decide to charge for certain premium features so we may fund further development. However, it has always been our intention to keep the core functionality free, for the benefit of the greater online electronics community."

I kinda doubt they'll really ever be able to make much money charging for 'certain premium features,' but who knows?

It would really benefit them if they added LTSpice import/export capabilities.

Sounds scary. One day all your stuff could go away.

--

John Larkin, President Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation

That's sort of what I was thinking. You can post a link to your on-line stuff and not have to worry about people having the correct (or any) brand of SPICE on their system.

--
Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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At some point it becomes necessary to behead all the architects and
begin construction. -- Abi-Bar-Shim (Project Mgr. - Great Pyramid)

Maybe that's the idea?

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
                                       (Richard Feynman)

For hobby that may be ok. With some of my clients, if I'd test their stuff via the web, pretty soon I'd probably be looking down the barrel of a 9mm Glock :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/