From: "Rich Alderson" It's not as bad as that sounds. Even the freeware version of Eagle can convert to Gerber, which will let you order the boards and possibly import them (in a crude way) to another CAD program. But the best way is probably to "export script", which will export a text file with the commands to re-create the board. Then it should be possible to munge the commands into the format needed by the other CAD tool. Of course, there are still going to be the usual issues one would run into re-drawing the board, about finding equivalent components in the other tool's libraries and such. You can even export the component libraries and translate those, if you are determined enough. But I always found it easier to just use Eagle :-). Vince BTW, Guy, did you create your layouts from scratch, or use the stuff on my website?

Guy Sotomayor wrote: Although I can understand the "FLOSS purists" shunning the app for philosophical reasons, I find it's a nice tool. While there are arguably better GUIs out there for the price, the amount of libraries for EAGLE seems to dwarf the other CAD options. And, since I've already learned the GUI, I find there's little incentive to go to another tool. To keep it on topic, it would seem there are far worse things in life than having the DEC card edge connector in EAGLE. Jim

On Aug 12, 2008, at 8:31 PM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: I'd certainly like one of the 5251s to materialize in Seattle. ok bear

And thusly were the wise words spake by Paul Koning HA! Yet CorelDraw *used* to be *the* vector art app. And Harvard Graphics was the presentation software at the time.. (IMHO) Cheers, Bryan

My high school had a pretty high tech (for the time) computer graphics lab. I remember using DeluxePaint and DeluxePaint Animator on PS/2s. We even had a super high-tech IBM AT upgraded to a 386, running Targa TIPS with a framegrabber card and an EM graphics tablet. The coolest by far was the souped up PS/2 running Windows 3 with Fractal Design Painter. You could get a cup of coffee while the screen painted, but procedural brushes where the bomb in the early 90's.

On 12 Aug 2008 at 15:43, Bryan Pope wrote: Heck, I still use OrCAD/386. Much simpler to use than the Windoze- based versions. There are some who still use the older DOS OrCAD. Cheers, Chuck

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 03:54:26PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: OrCAD DOS was the first schematic capture tool I used, back when it was current. I still have a 486 on the shelf that has it installed (but I originally used it on a 5170 PC c. 1989) I've gotten used to EagleCAD, but I did like the crispness of OrCAD for DOS over the Windows version (the difference being that the DOS version renders right to the framebuffer in some high-res mode compared to what we were using for Windows resolution at the time). ISTR using some extended EGA mode in DOS, since the number of colors (up to 16) wasn't critical. _If_ OrCAD for DOS can use VESA drivers, there are now some really nice resolutions on not-entirely-modern cards that we just didn't have back then. That, and now it's trivial to get a large-format monitor that was just dreams back then - I suppose any clunkiness with the UI would stand out running it on a semi-up-to-date platform, though. I haven't actually fired OrCAD up since I started playing with EagleCAD a number of years ago. If I had to do a commercial product, though, I _do_ still have all the old tools (OrCAD, PADS PCB, and some layout package for the Amiga I had to buy c. 1993 to produce the GG2 Bus+) so I wouldn't _have_ to upgrade from the hobbyist Cadsoft license, but in the end it would probably still be worth the expense if I thought I could make the license cost back in sales). -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 12-Aug-2008 at 23:00 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -78.7 F (-61.5 C) Windchill -118.8 F (-83.8 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 12.0 kts Grid 55 Barometer 675.9 mb (10783 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

Bryan Pope wrote: I used to write presentation graphics software for the London Software Studio, back in 1986-88. Harvard Graphics was out big competitor at the time -- what happened to it? Our software was called EPPS, the Enhanced Personal Presentation System, and ran on PCs with EGA cards. Then, the VGA came out and we got a bit left behind. I still have some demo code in C that I wrote on a PS/2 Model 80 for manipulating the VGA palette chip and doing all sorts of new and exciting things that never got into a product. PS. I had a copy of the EGA programming manual that was mentioned in another thread, but of course that was lost a long time ago. -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk

At 02:03 PM 8/13/2008, Richard wrote: Well, sort of. As the About page says, "In 2001, Serif Incorporated acquired the exclusive marketing rights to all Harvard Graphics products." SPC tanked in the mid 90s. Although I consulted there in '90-92 in the Madison and San Jose offices after helping to create the illustration product that was sold to SPC and eventually became Harvard Draw and then Harvard F/X (and as still available in Serif's Harvard Graphics 98 product), and helped with the conversion filters for Harvard Graphics for Windows, I don't remember much of their end story. Hmm, here's a clue: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,2064443,00.htm Looks like there's a recent recollection in the IEEE Annals: http://csdl2.computer.org/persagen/DLAbsToc.jsp?resourcePath=/dl/mags/an/&a… And some at the Computer History Museum: http://www.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=events&id=1293 And there's a web for alumni: http://home.ix.netcom.com/~jeff/ - John