Protel 99SE - a good choice

I have been using Protel 3.x for ages (obviously), but under XP it crashes a lot, for various reasons that are mysterious, despite my best effort to make XP as compatible as possible. I don't do many boards, and my needs are simple: schematic capture and board layout, mainly analog, large-trace, two-sided, hand-placed and routed. About two boards a year. That said, I have huge schematic and pcb libraries and don't want to re-create all those bits.

But this week the crashing and other quirks of Protel 3.x have finally gotten really frustrating, so I contacted my local Altium salesguy and he quoted me nearly $10,000 to buy a single seat of Designer 6, which is a bit silly for my needs. He agrees. He suggested that maybe 99SE would be a better choice, and knows a fellow who is looking to sell his copy for $3,000.

$3,000 is affordable, but it's not a trivial amount of money. I could use a bit of advice on this before I plunk down the cash, so TIA who can maybe provide some guidance.

-- mike elliott

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
    ... a lot, for various reasons that are mysterious, despite my best effort to ... schematic capture and board layout, mainly analog, large-trace, ... But this week the crashing and other quirks of Protel 3.x have finally ...
    (sci.electronics.cad)
  • Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
    ... Mike Rocket J Squirrel wrote: ... crashes a lot, for various reasons that are mysterious, despite my best ... schematic capture and board layout, mainly analog, ...
    (sci.electronics.cad)
  • Re: Schematic/Layout programs
    ... Yes, I have run the tutorials for both V6, 7, and 8 with no crashes. ... But as far as I have been plagued by the bugs, ... My objections to Protel is not about the structure of the programme itself. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Dedicated CAD computer?
    ... The most promising solution was to run Protel under VM Workstation emulating Win 95, and that seemed to work for a couple days, then Protel began its crashes again. ... and ignore AD6, but while receiving some nice one-on-one NetMeeting training from Altium I liked better how AD6 handled my needs and did things, so I've installed it and am running it. ...
    (sci.electronics.cad)
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