"MooseFET" wrote in message
...
On Feb 29, 1:06 am, "MooseFET" wrote:
"Jim Thompson" wrote in
messagenews:bcres3ps8e5p310h1vbscrlr5f3hhlfeh3@4ax .com...



On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:14:54 -0800, "Joel Koltner"
wrote:

Hi Joerg,

"Joerg" wrote in message
t...
But don't you guys use OrCad? I used to, but not anymore.

Yeah, for production stuff we do. I definitely don't *like* that fact,
but
we're in the (not so uncommon) situation that we have a number of ORCAD
licenses that were purchased years ago so switching requires...

1) Outlay of "new purchase price" for the alternative rather than just
shelling out maintenance every year
2) Conversion of current library parts over to new system
3) Re-training of engineers & techs to use the new system

ORCAD is spendy enough that #1 isn't too big of a problem, and our
libraries
still only have hundreds (not thousands) of symbols in them so
changeover
there isn't too bad (I wouldn't imagine it'd be more than a month's
effort),
but #3 is difficult to get by some people since they're so used to
ORCAD,
they
don't really see its shortcomings, and they're not personally footing
the
bill
for it. (I think there's often a "bell curve of happiness" associated
with
mediocre software... new users have problems with everything, regular
but
undemanding users are happy because they don't stress the tool much so
it
works OK, whereas advanced/demanding users are unhappy again because
they
realize that there are so many better options out there).

Sometime this year I'm planning on making a proper (formal)
presentation
comparing ORCAD with, e.g., Pulsonix. We'll see what happens...

Heck, is Autotrax still around? That used to be pretty good and I bet
it
won't be expensive anymore.

Autotrax or AutoTRAX? Wikipedia discusses two of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoTRAX_EDA

---Joel

P.S. -- Vaguely related story about software quality: I have a friend
who
works for a Big Software Company. In general he says that their most
sophisticated users and bug reports come from Europe. They had one guy
in
the
U.K. who was constantly filling bug reports with them -- it was almost
uncanny
how "good" he was at discovering them. At some point it dawned on them
that... hey... this would be a very useful guy to hire! They offered,
he
accepted, and now he's working here in Oregon. It turns out this
fellow
has
been using the software package in question for longer than anyone
who's
currently on staff at the company (!), and he has an excellent memory,
being
able to provide in-depth comparisons and contrasts of the package and
what's
been changed and fixed/broken in it for the past decade. Amazing...

Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

I literally buried the PSpice support people in accurate bug
reports/"issues".

They thanked me profusely and did nothing.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Rat Brass |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

America: Land of the Freedom abuser, Because of the *******s

Are you aware NI(national instrument) software went on sales lately?
That's
an
indication that you dumass going down... Heehee......Halleluiah. Shame on
you arrogant people.


Yup 13 years old.



Shut up pop, why are you not able to fill in the missing word? Because
you're so dumb and stubborn. You want people to conform to your style.