"Mike Engelhardt has parted ways with Analog Devices"

Time will tell. I don't know how ADI views LTspice. It's a free tool that likely provides only a minimum return. Maybe they will find someone else to take it over. Or maybe they will allow it to continue without much further effort.

Probably the only real work it requires is to support models for new parts. I'd be willing to bet that is already handled by the groups who produce the various parts.

LTSpice is a whole lot better than the other free Spice clones, and Mike Engelhardt seems to have been a key figure in keeping it that way.

Parts are being shipped without models, too.

That figures. I have found the schematic entry increasingly flakey of late.

Put a .param statement or simulation command, .tran, .ac or whatever, on the schematic. Run the sim, then right-click on the command. The dialog box (the new style introduced in XVII) pops up, change some values, hit OK. The command on the sim is unchanged.

ctrl+right click and edit the statement directly, if you can remember the syntax, hit OK and the edits succeed.

Anybody else seen this?

Yes, it's annoying.

The "helpful" dialog boxes, like the one that edits the simulation command, have been goofy for some time now. If you switch from, say, time domain to frequency domain sim, the parameters get all scrambled.

I flip the .tran and .ac command lines between directives and comments to change sim mode. It didn't used to be necessary to do that.

Maybe Analog wrecked the philosophy. It would be interesting to hear the story some day. Mike is probably NDA'd, or maybe paid, to not tell.

Something like that, I think.

Is it time to have a discussion on "the last stable and nice version"? and get the related install executable stored someplace?

Hello John, The "problem" caused when switching between the simulation type while using the standard dialog has been implemented years ago by Mike - an extra editor for every type of command line. There is an easy workaround. Make seperate SPICE-directives for each type of simulation which you need and make all to comments. Then make only the one you need to a SPICE-directive.

Another department of Analog Devices supports now LTspice. Earlier or later this would have happened anyway. I am happy that Analog Devices has decided that LTspice is their primary simulation tool. This guarantees that LTspice will be supported for the next decades.

Helmut Founder of the LTspice group in groups.io. All content of the LTspice Yahoo group has been copied to groups.io before Yahoo deleted the content of all groups last year.

PS: I am not an employee of Analog Devices.

It (4) might be portable. (just copy the files) I might find out soon when I put up this other PC. I can "stick" it in there and see if it runs.

"Minimum return"? That sure would be a very short-sighted view and a major marketing blunder. For me and many other engineers LTSpice is the core reason why we use rather expensive switcher chips from the former LTC and now AD. If I'd tally up the IC sales that this has triggered just from my designs we'd be talking seven digits and the profit margins on those chips are likely huge. I've used many of their chips for "off label" purposes and that would be nearly impossible without LTSPice.

Let's hope so, and that it will be done in the longterm.

Exactly. We use LTC parts because the models work.

LT Spice has probably sold 10 digits worth of parts. It likely contributed to ADI buying LTC. I assume Mike is rich, as he deserves to be.

I've been told that the model dev group has been "rearranged" lately, which is why I have LTM8078s and eval boards but no Spice model.

Pity, I could do some tricky fun stuff with that part.

Yes, I fully agree. He made LTC more money than dozens of top sales engineers together.

It is sad that Mike is leaving but all good things eventually come to an end. AD might not have Mike anymore but we still have Helmut.

That's exactly the market, off-label use. Most of the time the BOM cost isn't all that important for such projects. They just want it working, and fast.

On the other hand, they might hire a competent software engineer who knows something about UX to work on it. Mike was great at the backend stuff but hopeless in the UI.

Otherwise some competent OSS person might decide to release a version of Superspice now it's open source. That's supposed to be pretty good also.

Clifford Heath.

I usually use a directive block with a comment in the first line, e.g.

; SIMULATION COMMAND .tran 1 ;.ac blah blah

That way if you right-click on the first line, you don't get the training-wheels dialogue box for AC, transient, or noise.

Like many of us, Mike's not especially young, so his passing the torch isn't unexpected. Is there a reason to suppose that he didn't jump, but got pushed?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Is anyone connected to him on Linkedin, or any other group.

Yep. I have been doing similar, but hadn't twigged that the first-line comment makes the whole mess go away.

The dialogs for V and I sources don't seem to have this problem. The syntax for PULSE has changed since IV, though, or rather it doesn't have defaults for any of the parameters, which broke a lot of my old sims.

PULSE(0 5 1m) would turn on the source after 1ms, with a default rise time of 1 ns IIRC, and leave it on forever, which was good enough for a lot of situations. That no longer works.

I met him about two years ago, at a seminar he gave. Which, now it looks likely there won't be any more, I'm very glad I attended. He didn't seem on the verge of retirement, quite the opposite. My money would be on corporate meddling, but we'll probably never know.

It says on his profile:-

"Best known as the author of LTspice, but has an idea for a better simulator in mind."

Maybe he's off to do that.

I'm not connected to him. Someone else I know is.

Brian

We do not use and have never used LTC parts. Simply way too expensive

The models from other manufactors also work :-)

Cheers

Klaus

We're in a market where performance sells and time-to-market matters and parts cost is almost in the noise. A few of the LTC parts are worth the cost. We made a lot of money off LT1028, and we use a lot of the LTM regulator bricks so we don't waste time on power supplies. Some of their serial DACs are nice.

But we use a lot more TI and ADI. I wonder if ADI will adjust the premium LTC pricing any.