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Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems. |
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#1
Posted to sci.electronics.design,sci.electronics.repair,sci.electronics.components
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Board Design
"Jim Thompson" wrote in message ... 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 | Brass Rat | | http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave Are you NI(national instrument) software went on sales lately? That's an indication that you dumass going down... Heehee......Halleluiah. Shame on you arrogant people. |
#2
Posted to sci.electronics.design,sci.electronics.repair,sci.electronics.components
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Board Design
"MooseFET" wrote in message ... "Jim Thompson" wrote in message ... On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:14:54 -0800, "Joel Koltner" wrote: Hi Joerg, "Joerg" wrote in message et... 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 | Brass Rat | | http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave Are you * NI(national instrument) software going on sales lately? That's an indication that you dumass going down... Heehee......Halleluiah. Shame on you arrogant people. The above was a test to see if the war *******s can fill in the missing words. Evidently they gave up, the missing words are "aware of" |
#3
Posted to sci.electronics.design,sci.electronics.repair,sci.electronics.components
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Board Design
On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:18:56 -0800, "MooseFET"
wrote: "MooseFET" wrote in message ... "Jim Thompson" wrote in message ... On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:14:54 -0800, "Joel Koltner" wrote: Hi Joerg, "Joerg" wrote in message . net... 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 | Brass Rat | | http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave Are you * NI(national instrument) software going on sales lately? That's an indication that you dumass going down... Heehee......Halleluiah. Shame on you arrogant people. The above was a test to see if the war *******s can fill in the missing words. Evidently they gave up, the missing words are "aware of" Yo imposter. We most certainly saw it. Most are ignoring or blocking you already. Your little act is over, go away forever. |
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