At 11:31 PM 6/6/01 Phillip Stevens wrote:
>http://www.spincircuit.com/about/solution.html
At 2:47 AM 6/8/01 Abdul-Rahman Lomax commented:
>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.
My initial experience with eCAPTURE is similar with Mr Lomax's, except that
I downloaded the *.zip version and installed it from my hard drive, and then
successfully imported one of the sample schematics supplied with the
download into SE99 SP6.
>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).
I could barely contain my excitement when I discovered that the their
"ActiveParts" included symbols for TI's TMS320VC5402 and TMS320C6711 DSP's,
only to further discover that about half the pins are missing from the
TMS320C6711 symbol. I submitted a symbol problem report and got an e-mail
response with the TMS320C6711 symbol attached- but it was the exact same
WRONG symbol that I had reported! I'll see what happens when I follow
through.
At 9:57 PM 6/8/01 Abdul-Rahman Lomax continued:
>I downloaded and installed Explorer 5.5, which did not fix the problem.
>However, installing MS Virtual Machine did. To test the system, I searched
>for a Linear Technology part, LTC1144. I was promptly given a choice of
>various versions; I picked -CS8 and placed it in eCapture and saved the
>file. I then loaded the file (.dsn) into Protel and made a library with the
>part. It worked flawlessly, down to the hidden ground pin, I'm sure some of
>our readers will be happy about that.... The power out pin had the "output"
>attribute, which I would change to "power."
Mr Lomax's success with eCAPTURE exceeds what I was able to achieve, so I
have two questions which I hope he can answer.
My environment is NT4 WS SP6 (stand alone), IE5.5 with MS VIRTUAL MACHINE,
running on a 450MHz P3. When installing eCAPTURE a warning message appears
that overwriting certain registered file types (reportedly required by
eCAPTURE) can cause problems with existing applications. The file types are:
*.dsn
*.lib
*.olb
*.sch
also:
*.cfg
*.dre
*.edn
*.exp
*.flp
*.map
*.net
*.pld
*.rpt
*.swp
*.upd
*.vhd
*.xrf
*.bom
I know that Protel SE99 and CircuitMaker/TraxMaker (which I have on my
computer and use regularly) use several of these file types, so I did not
overwrite them. My FIRST QUESTION to Mr Lomax is did you take any special
actions to RESOLVE THIS POTENTIAL CONFLICT, or did you simply overwrite?
Nevertheless eCAPTURE is running on my computer and I can place "local"
parts. I can also access "Active Parts" on line via eCAPTURE, but the
program does NOT PLACE the "Active Part" when I click on the 'Place Part'
button in the 'Activepart Explorer' window. eCAPTURE then allows another
"Active Part" to be specified, but neither does it place that, nor any other
subsequent "Active" selection. This may be related to NOT OVERWRITING the
file types above. My SECOND QUESTION to Mr Lomax is, if you did overwrite,
did you have any problems with Protel SE99 or any other applications?
I have submitted these same issues to SpinCircuit and will report their
response.
SpinCircuit is providing what may be a valuable supplemental resource to
Protel users, so all enlightening comments are welcome.
Regards and thanks,
Fred A Rupinski
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