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Question for LTSpice Users

J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Has anyone used anything other than the provided schematic entry for
LTSpice?

What I have in mind is using my venerable MicroSim Schematics as a
frontend for LTSpice.

I have dozens of years of collected symbols... too late to teach an
old dog new tricks.

Thompson is about to bail from PSpice... a continual money-hole with
no improvements in years... they haven't even fixed the bugs I
reported 5 years ago :-(

...Jim Thompson
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
Has anyone used anything other than the provided schematic entry for
LTSpice?

What I have in mind is using my venerable MicroSim Schematics as a
frontend for LTSpice.

I have dozens of years of collected symbols... too late to teach an
old dog new tricks.

Thompson is about to bail from PSpice... a continual money-hole with
no improvements in years... they haven't even fixed the bugs I
reported 5 years ago :-(

...Jim Thompson


LTspice schematics are simple ASCII text files. If you can somehow
export your old stuff in some understood, preferably text, format, it
wouldn't be monstrous to write a Basic or Pearl program to do the
conversion.

John
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
LTspice schematics are simple ASCII text files. If you can somehow
export your old stuff in some understood, preferably text, format, it
wouldn't be monstrous to write a Basic or Pearl program to do the
conversion.

John

MicroSim Schematics is text-based as well. However, MicroSim
Schematics is one of the best tools ever written... I want to continue
using it.

...Jim Thompson
 
E

EE123

Jan 1, 1970
0
Schematics is one of the best tools ever written... I want to continue
using it.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -




Which version of PSpice are you using?


Dave
 
G

Genome

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Thompson said:
Has anyone used anything other than the provided schematic entry for
LTSpice?

What I have in mind is using my venerable MicroSim Schematics as a
frontend for LTSpice.

I have dozens of years of collected symbols... too late to teach an
old dog new tricks.

Thompson is about to bail from PSpice... a continual money-hole with
no improvements in years... they haven't even fixed the bugs I
reported 5 years ago :-(

...Jim Thompson
--

You can copy and paste a spice netlist file as a spice statement in the
LTspice editor window and things seem to run........ So use MicroSim to
generate a .net file and carry on.

It's not elegant but....

..include filename.net doesn't seem to work but there may be something
similar that does.

Watch out for the license agreement!

You may as well e-mail Mike for a better answer, unless you are not mates
anymore.

DNA
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Which version of PSpice are you using?


Dave

v15.7 (by the new Cadence numbering system). But Schematics itself
hasn't changed in years... except for the mucking around by Cadence
"developers" (you know, the ones recently mentioned in the news as
admitting to having little dicks :)

For instance, the recent release lost its ability to handle paths to
accessory tools if the path name had spaces... as in Program Files :-(

Took some finagling to cure...

TEXTEDITCMD=C:\"Program Files"\"IDM Computer
Solutions"\UltraEdit-32\uedit32.exe

Isn't that crazy ?:)

...Jim Thompson
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
You can copy and paste a spice netlist file as a spice statement in the
LTspice editor window and things seem to run........ So use MicroSim to
generate a .net file and carry on.

It's not elegant but....

.include filename.net doesn't seem to work but there may be something
similar that does.

Watch out for the license agreement!

Which license agreement would that be?
You may as well e-mail Mike for a better answer, unless you are not mates
anymore.

DNA

I would, but I've misplaced his address :-9

...Jim Thompson
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Well..... help|about gives you an e-mail address for comments and bug
reports. Each time I've used it Mike was the person who replied.

License...... help|help topics|License Agreement/Disclaimer.....

"This program is specifically not licensed for use by semiconductor
manufacturers in the promotion, demonstration or sale of their products.
Specific permission must be obtained from Linear Technology for the use of
SwitcherCAD III for these applications."

OK it does not sound like it specifically prevents you from using the
software to do what you do but it might be interpreted that way. I'm sure
Linear Technology would take a dim view of things if you started using the
software to design stuff that encroaches on their market.....

Play the 'White Man' and ask before you get stomped on...

DNA

Oooops! I DO HAVE a request for a switcher design here on my desk ;-)

...Jim Thompson
 
G

Genome

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Thompson said:
Which license agreement would that be?


I would, but I've misplaced his address :-9

...Jim Thompson

Well..... help|about gives you an e-mail address for comments and bug
reports. Each time I've used it Mike was the person who replied.

License...... help|help topics|License Agreement/Disclaimer.....

"This program is specifically not licensed for use by semiconductor
manufacturers in the promotion, demonstration or sale of their products.
Specific permission must be obtained from Linear Technology for the use of
SwitcherCAD III for these applications."

OK it does not sound like it specifically prevents you from using the
software to do what you do but it might be interpreted that way. I'm sure
Linear Technology would take a dim view of things if you started using the
software to design stuff that encroaches on their market.....

Play the 'White Man' and ask before you get stomped on...

DNA
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Thompson said:
TEXTEDITCMD=C:\"Program Files"\"IDM Computer
Solutions"\UltraEdit-32\uedit32.exe

Isn't that crazy ?:)

Clear indication of programmers who either (1) are pretty mediocre or (2)
don't actually use their own tools.

In the case of ORCAD these days, I'd imagine both apply.
 
Q

qrk

Jan 1, 1970
0
Has anyone used anything other than the provided schematic entry for
LTSpice?

What I have in mind is using my venerable MicroSim Schematics as a
frontend for LTSpice.

I have dozens of years of collected symbols... too late to teach an
old dog new tricks.

Thompson is about to bail from PSpice... a continual money-hole with
no improvements in years... they haven't even fixed the bugs I
reported 5 years ago :-(

...Jim Thompson

LTspice will read the Schematics net list output. I was doing that
back a few years ago on "that" project. PSpice does have a nicer
graphing utility, so it would be spiffy if you could convert the
LTspice output file to something PSpice's graphing utility could
swallow. Although, I really like how LTspice shows graphical results
as it is running the simulation.
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Clear indication of programmers who either (1) are pretty mediocre or (2)
don't actually use their own tools.

In the case of ORCAD these days, I'd imagine both apply.

My intense aggravation is driven by the fact that they mucked with a
working tool that they "no longer support"... I guess "no longer
support" means "kill it" :-(

...Jim Thompson
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
My intense aggravation is driven by the fact that they mucked with a
working tool that they "no longer support"... I guess "no longer
support" means "kill it" :-(

...Jim Thompson

And an almost criminal intent to do damage...

TEXTEDITCMD="C:\Program Files\IDM Computer
Solutions\UltraEdit-32\uedit32.exe"

worked when entered from the Schematics set-up tab, also double quotes
"" ... ""

but were removed during the re-write of the INI file.

That looks to be an "on purpose" damage attempt to me.

...Jim Thompson
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Thompson said:
v15.7 (by the new Cadence numbering system). But Schematics itself
hasn't changed in years... except for the mucking around by Cadence
"developers" (you know, the ones recently mentioned in the news as
admitting to having little dicks :)

For instance, the recent release lost its ability to handle paths to
accessory tools if the path name had spaces... as in Program Files :-(

Took some finagling to cure...

TEXTEDITCMD=C:\"Program Files"\"IDM Computer
Solutions"\UltraEdit-32\uedit32.exe

Isn't that crazy ?:)

No, its actually quite common to place "" around paths. The routine
parsing the path needs some way to tell where the path ends.
Especially when multiple paths can be specified.
 
G

Genome

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Thompson said:
Oooops! I DO HAVE a request for a switcher design here on my desk ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--

Ooooooh me-gosh. Just call me jealous.

DNA
 
Jim said:
Has anyone used anything other than the provided schematic entry for
LTSpice?

What I have in mind is using my venerable MicroSim Schematics as a
frontend for LTSpice.

I have dozens of years of collected symbols... too late to teach an
old dog new tricks.

Thompson is about to bail from PSpice... a continual money-hole with
no improvements in years... they haven't even fixed the bugs I
reported 5 years ago :-(

...Jim Thompson

Netlisting is more than half the battle. Why not just feed the netlist
to any number of other spice simulators out there. Ngspice for
instance.
http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Jan 1, 1970
0
David L. Jones said:
Speaking (opposite) of which, I like this story about the Altium CEO
using his own tools:
http://www.fpgajournal.com/articles_2006/20060822_altium.htm

Nice article, although I question a couple of its claims:

"For any reasonably complex software system with more than about two serious
users, the number of bug reports and change requests will far outpace the fix
rate of the development engineers" -- Hopefully they wouldn't state this if
they were only talking about *bug reports* and not *bug reports AND change
requests*.

"One of the classic problems faced by users of electronic design automation
software is that the developers of the software are, by necessity, software
engineers." -- What makes them think this? Personally I'd prefer software
programmed by a really good hardware engineer who happens to be an average
programmer long before software programmed by a "software engineer" who never
did any real hardware design. In the former case, at worst you tend to end up
with weird GUIs and odd ways of getting things done, but in the later the
software doesn't work at all for its intended purpose.
 
D

David L. Jones

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joel said:
Nice article, although I question a couple of its claims:

"For any reasonably complex software system with more than about two serious
users, the number of bug reports and change requests will far outpace the fix
rate of the development engineers" -- Hopefully they wouldn't state this if
they were only talking about *bug reports* and not *bug reports AND change
requests*.

"One of the classic problems faced by users of electronic design automation
software is that the developers of the software are, by necessity, software
engineers." -- What makes them think this?

Maybe programs like EDA tools are just so huge and complex these days
that it might actually take "software engineers" to do it? Hardware
engineer "programmers" usually want to do it all themselves and don't
play well with other programmers :->, that may not be conducive to huge
software development efforts!
Personally I'd prefer software
programmed by a really good hardware engineer who happens to be an average
programmer long before software programmed by a "software engineer" who never
did any real hardware design. In the former case, at worst you tend to end up
with weird GUIs and odd ways of getting things done, but in the later the
software doesn't work at all for its intended purpose.

Very true in many cases.

Dave :)
 
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