Migrating back to OrCAD 9.x !!

[[email protected]]

Hi,
I have been using OrCAD 10.5 for months, and in this relativly short
time I have witnessed the program crashes a lot of times, work being
lost, inconsistancy between the documention and the actual version,
etc.., Installing OrCAD Service Pack1, didn't help either.
Therefore, I am thinking of immigrating back to OrCAD 9.x. I didn't
really see any big differences between the two versions.
Did someone also think about immagrating back? What drawbacks can I
face?

Cheers,
JJ

 

[Jim Thompson]

Hi,
I have been using OrCAD 10.5 for months, and in this relativly short
time I have witnessed the program crashes a lot of times, work being
lost, inconsistancy between the documention and the actual version,
etc.., Installing OrCAD Service Pack1, didn't help either.
Therefore, I am thinking of immigrating back to OrCAD 9.x. I didn't
really see any big differences between the two versions.
Did someone also think about immagrating back? What drawbacks can I
face?

Cheers,
JJ

What's crashing, PSpice or (likely) Capture ?

...Jim Thompson

 

[[email protected]]

Mostly capture, but also a couple of times PSpice, and I am talking
here about OrCAD 10.5 SP1!

 

[Jim Thompson]

Mostly capture, but also a couple of times PSpice, and I am talking
here about OrCAD 10.5 SP1!

[snip]

Please elaborate. Examples?

If it's due to Capture, I can't help, I use PSpice Schematics.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Joel Kolstad]

I have been using OrCAD 10.5 for months, and in this relativly short
time I have witnessed the program crashes a lot of times, work being
lost, inconsistancy between the documention and the actual version,
etc.., Installing OrCAD Service Pack1, didn't help either.
Therefore, I am thinking of immigrating back to OrCAD 9.x. I didn't
really see any big differences between the two versions.
Did someone also think about immagrating back? What drawbacks can I
face?

I've never had a problem opening a 10.5 design in 9.2; I believe the
differences are in the "user interface" and that the file formats/capabilities
are, if not 100% identical, very, very close.

User interface features you lose in 9.2 include:

-- No rotation of multiple objects selected as a group
-- Clicking and dragging is a little more squirrely (tries to resize instead
of selecting)
-- Pin names can't be moved!
-- Grid is a little more squirrely (requiring moving part off-grid at least
one grid space to re-snap to grid)
-- Rotating text doesn't work as well (aesthetically -- alignment gets messed
up)
-- Junctions are a little dumber (if you delete one leg of a T, the junction
dot remains and needs to be deleted manually)
-- Multi-level undo! (9.2 only has single level. Uggh.)
-- In property dialogs, you can't type exact coordinates

That's what I have off-hand.

You might want to consider switching to a different program, e.g., Pulsonix.
It has bugs (I keep a list of the ones I've found on the Yahoo! Pulsonix
group) and isn't as feature-laden as ORCAD, but it is built with a much
clearer "vision" of what they're trying to achieve (whereas ORCAD is on
life-support these days, with on-going development in India) and any real
"showstopper" bugs (those that cause data loss, crash the software, etc.) get
fixed pretty much immediately -- in general they're a lot more responsive than
Cadence. For the *money* it's a much better value.

You can also import ORCAD schematics; this work pretty well. They claim you
can *export* ORCAD schematics too, but don't believe it -- the functionality
is nowhere near ready for commercial work yet.

---Joel Kolstad

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Mostly capture, but also a couple of times PSpice, and I am talking
here about OrCAD 10.5 SP1!

(I probably sound like Leon Heller here, but...) Pulsonix uses the SIMetrix
SPICE engine, which is quite good. (Although, just like ORCAD vs. Pulsonix,
Pulsonix SPICE isn't as feature-laden as PSpice is and a lack of, e.g.,
fancier transistor models would probably make it a non-start for some uses.)

 

[Leon]

I've never had a problem opening a 10.5 design in 9.2; I believe the
differences are in the "user interface" and that the file formats/capabilities
are, if not 100% identical, very, very close.

User interface features you lose in 9.2 include:

-- No rotation of multiple objects selected as a group
-- Clicking and dragging is a little more squirrely (tries to resize instead
of selecting)
-- Pin names can't be moved!
-- Grid is a little more squirrely (requiring moving part off-grid at least
one grid space to re-snap to grid)
-- Rotating text doesn't work as well (aesthetically -- alignment gets messed
up)
-- Junctions are a little dumber (if you delete one leg of a T, the junction
dot remains and needs to be deleted manually)
-- Multi-level undo! (9.2 only has single level. Uggh.)
-- In property dialogs, you can't type exact coordinates

That's what I have off-hand.

You might want to consider switching to a different program, e.g., Pulsonix.
It has bugs (I keep a list of the ones I've found on the Yahoo! Pulsonix
group) and isn't as feature-laden as ORCAD, but it is built with a much
clearer "vision" of what they're trying to achieve (whereas ORCAD is on
life-support these days, with on-going development in India) and any real
"showstopper" bugs (those that cause data loss, crash the software, etc.) get
fixed pretty much immediately -- in general they're a lot more responsive than
Cadence. For the *money* it's a much better value.

You can also import ORCAD schematics; this work pretty well. They claim you
can *export* ORCAD schematics too, but don't believe it -- the functionality
is nowhere near ready for commercial work yet.

---Joel Kolstad

I should point out that Joel has only listed two bugs in the current
release. The first is somewhat annoying, but can be worked around. The
second is very unlikely to be experienced by anyone, is very easy to
avoid and won't cause anyone any problems.

Leon

 

[Joel Kolstad]

I should point out that Joel has only listed two bugs in the current
release.

Actually it's more than half a dozen, although there are only 4 that were
re-checked in the current build (2959). However, it's a fair bet that any bug
in previous releases that the current release notes don't address are still in
there. Here's a new one for you: Name a PCB something like "test.031.pcb"...
now generate LPKF output for it... you'll find that the "test.031.gbx" file is
incomplete (the "." in the file name messes up the output file generation) --
Pulsonix has confirmed this as a bug (in the current build), but it's minor
enough I didn't bother adding it to my list.

In any case, since Pulsonix -- like many EDA companies, including Cadence --
keeps their internal bug list private it's a fair bet that if I, as a very
"lightweight," casual user of Pulsonix can document more than half a dozen
bugs, there's probably hundreds on the internal list. (Of course ORCAD
probably has just as many...)

The first is somewhat annoying, but can be worked around. The
second is very unlikely to be experienced by anyone, is very easy to
avoid and won't cause anyone any problems.

I'd let people judge that for themselves after reading the list.

---Joel

 

[qrk]

Hi,
I have been using OrCAD 10.5 for months, and in this relativly short
time I have witnessed the program crashes a lot of times, work being
lost, inconsistancy between the documention and the actual version,
etc.., Installing OrCAD Service Pack1, didn't help either.
Therefore, I am thinking of immigrating back to OrCAD 9.x. I didn't
really see any big differences between the two versions.
Did someone also think about immagrating back? What drawbacks can I
face?

Cheers,
JJ

For Layout, you can't do a proper DRC on a board that uses blind or
buried vias in version 9.x. However, you will gain a load of redraw
speed for copper pours/areas by going back to version 9.x. EDA's
handling of this bug report was very unimpressive when I brought up
this bug in versions 10.x, even when talking to them over the phone
and supplying simple examples. The problems of exporting the software
development to India! Actually, the latest version 9.x was pretty darn
stable.

Don't know about Capture. Dog of a program. I still use the old DOS
version of Orcad SDT 386+ which is stable and efficient. With the new
VESA video drivers someone wrote a couple years back and hacks to some
of the utilities, it's still a very nice schematic program.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Mark,

Don't know about Capture. Dog of a program. I still use the old DOS
version of Orcad SDT 386+ which is stable and efficient. With the new
VESA video drivers someone wrote a couple years back and hacks to some
of the utilities, it's still a very nice schematic program.

Agree. I was never really happy with any of the OrCAD versions after
they migrated to Windows. Plus the pricing has IMHO gone up a bit too
steeply. So, I switched to Cadsoft Eagle. They didn't outsource their
work and you get prompt answers in one of their NGs in case of problems.

 

[[email protected]]

I have always wanted to use Eagle for its easiness, large number of
users, and cheapness. But I have heard from colleages and from tutors
in my University, that you can't do series projects with it, i.e. not
recommended for projects that have more than approx. 6 layers or more
than approx. 100Mhz !!

 

[[email protected]]

Yeah, its probably due to Capture.

Mostly capture, but also a couple of times PSpice, and I am talking
here about OrCAD 10.5 SP1!

[snip]

Please elaborate. Examples?

If it's due to Capture, I can't help, I use PSpice Schematics.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Joerg]

Hello Jidan,

I have always wanted to use Eagle for its easiness, large number of
users, and cheapness. But I have heard from colleages and from tutors
in my University, that you can't do series projects with it, i.e. not
recommended for projects that have more than approx. 6 layers or more
than approx. 100Mhz !!

Huh? Why would that be? It has been used for RF layouts much above that
and it can support a lot more than sic layers. No offense but I'd talk
to folks in industry about that ;-)

IMHO Eagle has three major downsides for industry users: It doesn't
support hierarchical sheet structures, it does not offer additional part
fields (will be offered soon though) and it doesn't easily interface
with foreign layout packages. I use a contract layouter so the latter is
a pain. But all that is outweighed by it's nicely integrated behavior
and good support.