On 2/17/2010 11:10 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
Hmm. I guess that was the context, though. :-/
Ah, it makes more sense now.
Eagle is pretty powerful, and is pretty much the "standard" for
low-end development and smaller boards. PCB is geared toward larger
stuff. You don't sit down and whack out a board in an hour in
PCB...but you don't design an entire (big) computer in Eagle.
That puts me in a
bit of a quandary. I am just *NOT* grokking PCB at
present. maybe I'm just too comfortable with EAGLE. But, I am ready to
start laying out more complex boards, so I need to make a decision here
at some point on the direction I should go. TO tie all of this together
and relate to the list topic: Lots of people are asking for vintage PC
peripherals and integration with contemporary stuff, but the only way to
implement some of these designs is via CPLD and/or FPGA, and making all
of that fit in some of the required spaces will mean 4 layer boards and
lots of fine pitch work. It's OK, and I'm game to learn FPGAs and more
complex layout, but I have got to be efficient about this.
Well admittedly I'm running development snapshots. They PCB
developers are a bit lacking in the "just cut a damn release already!"
area.
I thought I'd just grab the source and compile it a few minutes ago
before I last replied, but I can't easily see a link to the tarball or a
repo to snarf the latest and compile. Links would be appreciated, as I
would really like to seriously consider PCB and/or KiCAD for larger
board work.
Not click-click trivial, no. If memory serves, you have to select
the trace, and execute a function by name to change its width.
Yeah, I found it
under "Select"
Yeah that's pretty old snapshot by now. I'm not sure why the later
stuff isn't more readily known to those not on the mailing lists.
That is a
shame. I don't want to have to subscribe or troll the list
just to know where the latest source tree is.
Welllll...I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that peoples'
expectations are changing. PCB design is a developing art, but it's
not moving THAT quickly. I use pretty much the same techniques with
PCB on a Sun Ray terminal backed by a big multiprocessor Sun as I did
on a huge desk-based Calay system in 1988.
I'm thinking the young
whippersnappers like me, who are used to right
click context menus, click and drag everything, toolbars and cute icon
buttons on the left/right/top/etc. You know, the spoiled brats of this
hobby :-) (I'll defend myself in that I can install and run Linux here,
it runs the entire home network, I can compile from source, I love VI,
and I must have CYGWIN tooling on my Windows box... But, I'm all that
AND a spoiled Windows brat.)
Jim