toner transfer circuit board etching - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

31 Jul 2006

...
 Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:07:00 -0400
From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>

Tim Shoppa wrote:
   For me, far higher yield for double-sided
PCB's
  comes from ordering boards over the
  internet. Generally you have to use (gasp!) a modern PC with
  Windows software, but other than that the experience is wonderful. 
    GASP...I'm sorry to say this Tim, but this is SO untrue.  The
majority of the Internet-based PCB fab houses accept Gerber-format
files...and while you *can* generate those with a legacy Windows PC, I
can't come up with any good reason why someone would want to.  I do it
with Solaris on UltraSPARC all the time, for both commercial and hobby
projects.  Commercial EDA software for modern platforms is hellatiously
expensive, but even that is unnecessary nowadays.  I use two free
packages: gEDA for schematic capture and PCB for circuit board layout.
They also work nicely under MacOS X.  I regularly do fine-pitch surface
mount designs with this software. 
For $200 one can get Osmond PCB for the Mac.  It runs on 68K, PPC 
Classic, and OSX.   Until earlier this year it was in beta and 
available free for testing.  I completed two designs while Osmond was 
in beta which were exported to Gerber and sent out for production. 
It worked great.   I'd do it again, but for my current designs, I 
just don't want to spend as much per board.

Anyway, to avoid digressing too much, the point is, I agree.  PCB 
design can be done affordably on platforms other than a Windows based 
machine.

*Most* (virtually all) PCB fabs expect gerber files, not a 
proprietary file format generated by their in house software.

However, perhaps what Tim meant is that to get some of the great 
deals available, one goes to the PCB fab which provides in-house 
software, and to run that software you need a reasonably up to date 
windows machine.   This is certainly true for PCB Express or 4PCB or 
whatever they're called.

Jeff Walther