At 11:31 PM 6/6/01 -0400, Phillip Stevens wrote:
>http://www.spincircuit.com/about/solution.html
I found the eCapture program offered freely at this site quite interesting.
So I downloaded the application; took a few hours with my dial-up modem.
It appears to be a full-function version of OrCAD Capture v9.
I used it to load an old OrCAD v.7 schematic I had lying about. Worked
fine, translating it to v. 9.
I then wrote the file and imported it to Protel. The import appears to have
worked perfectly.
To start up eCapture, one must log in to the Spincircuit site. This means
they could decide to revoke the usage privilege or to charge for it. But my
guess is that they are not going to do that. They get your email address
when you register; we'll see what I get from this.
But here is the truly interesting thing: part of the eCapture system is
what they call ActivePart. They have a huge database of parts with assigned
symbols which one can search and access. Since these symbols are
translatable into Protel, this is a source of parts for us that may not
have been prepared yet by Protel. The mfr. list was truly impressive, and
they have a procedure for requesting new parts (you have to provide a URL
with part data).
Fly in the ointment: the Javascript used in the search engine crashed every
time I tried to use it. I've informed them, we'll see how they respond.
At last, the right price for an OrCAD product.... :-) Actually, for Layout
that would be too expensive....
A couple of years ago I thought that a free CAD application similar to this
would be a great way to attract new users; I may have discussed this on
this list. Instead of having the demo expire, have it convert to a rental
application; at least the demo should become a viewer. Since I know that
Cadence was watching this list, maybe....
on the other hand, there are others on the planet with a brain.
OrCAD now provides a lite version free. I've found it quite useful for
converting older OrCAD PCB and Layout files into version 9 so that I could
import them into Protel. It won't edit and save the files if they are
large, but it converts them and saves translated files as v. 9 before it
refuses to go further....
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Abdulrahman Lomax
P.O. Box 690
El Verano, CA 95433
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