Re: Board Design

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:58:33 -0800, Joerg
<notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:23:12 GMT, Joerg
<notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
Joerg wrote:
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:14:54 -0800, "Joel Koltner"
<zapwireDASHgroups@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Joerg,

"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:QlJxj.3261$pl4.18@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
But don't you guys use OrCad? I used to, but not anymore.
Yeah, for production stuff we do. I definitely don't *like* that
fact, but we're in the (not so uncommon) situation that we have a
number of ORCAD licenses that were purchased years ago so switching
requires...

1) Outlay of "new purchase price" for the alternative rather than
just shelling out maintenance every year
2) Conversion of current library parts over to new system
3) Re-training of engineers & techs to use the new system

ORCAD is spendy enough that #1 isn't too big of a problem, and our
libraries still only have hundreds (not thousands) of symbols in
them so changeover there isn't too bad (I wouldn't imagine it'd be
more than a month's effort), but #3 is difficult to get by some
people since they're so used to ORCAD, they don't really see its
shortcomings, and they're not personally footing the bill for it.
(I think there's often a "bell curve of happiness" associated with
mediocre software... new users have problems with everything,
regular but undemanding users are happy because they don't stress
the tool much so it works OK, whereas advanced/demanding users are
unhappy again because they realize that there are so many better
options out there).

Sometime this year I'm planning on making a proper (formal)
presentation comparing ORCAD with, e.g., Pulsonix. We'll see what
happens...

Heck, is Autotrax still around? That used to be pretty good and I
bet it won't be expensive anymore.
Autotrax or AutoTRAX? Wikipedia discusses two of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoTRAX_EDA

---Joel

P.S. -- Vaguely related story about software quality: I have a
friend who works for a Big Software Company. In general he says
that their most sophisticated users and bug reports come from
Europe. They had one guy in the U.K. who was constantly filling bug
reports with them -- it was almost uncanny how "good" he was at
discovering them. At some point it dawned on them that... hey...
this would be a very useful guy to hire! They offered, he accepted,
and now he's working here in Oregon. It turns out this fellow has
been using the software package in question for longer than anyone
who's currently on staff at the company (!), and he has an excellent
memory, being able to provide in-depth comparisons and contrasts of
the package and what's been changed and fixed/broken in it for the
past decade. Amazing...

Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

I literally buried the PSpice support people in accurate bug
reports/"issues".

They thanked me profusely and did nothing.

Looks like the semiconductor industry is quickly heading in that
direction as well. The difference in support between this year and
last is mind-boggling. Day and night, with 2008 being the night ... :-(

Call it NXP effect. When it is all about bookkeeping valuation rather
than producing and selling useful goods, this is what happens,

I am used to that from European companies. The German part of Philips
way back when (Valvo in Hamburg) used to be absolutely excellent in
support. Things began to slip a few years after they re-branded all that
as Philips. Same with Siemens, excellent support until it becamne
Infineon. They blow a lot of money to have their name on stadiums or
race tracks or whatever, money they should have been spending on
engineering support.

But to see US companies now making the same mistake is sad.

Most of the Stadiums in California have been rebadged with corporate
names.


Yes, but why Infineon? Only engineers will recognize that name. They
really should have spent that money on customer service.

But it is a cool sounding name and could attract "investors".

.

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