Moving up from Protel PCB v2.8???

Hi All,

Not been here for a few years!

I've been using Protel PCB since v1.0 (1993?) and the above since

1995. It does everything I need. Occassionally I have used a similarly old version of Specctra (v6?) for routing large digital boards, but now it's mostly a mixture and track layout is critical so I do it all by hand. Protel's own autorouter was never any good except for trivial boards but Specctra (even v6) is brilliant.

Unfortunately Protel 2.8 doesn't work well under win2000 or higher. So I am looking at successors.

There appears to be a monster called protel DXP which includes a PCB design module. Can anyone offer opinions on a) whether this is any good (for PCB design, perhaps digital autorouting) and b) does it reliably import old v2.8 .pcb files?

Thank you in advance for any info.

Peter.

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There are multiple opinions about this subject. Please have a look at the listserver :

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There go to "Protel EDA Forum" Your question was discussed endlessly.

Plus there are discussion groups at protel itself. There apparently are users of this new system.

I personally favor the new system. Yes, it needs some more work to be done. They are also following the Microsoft rule that new features are more important than bug fixes, as the money only rols in through new versions with new features. Protel once tried to sell paid software updates, but the users somehow made clear that they expect servicepacks for free. Well, these paid updates were considered a bit expensive. Thus it is the way is.

Rene