David W. Duley wrote:
>
> In a message dated 97-10-18 12:42:36 EDT, you write:
>
> <<
>  Ivex make a really good package, schematic and pcb, it can be downladed from
>  their site. www.ivex.com. The free package is limited to 100 pins, in the UK
>  it costs 20 GBP to upgrade to 200 pins so quite inexpensive. I bought the
>  printed manuals (for approx 45 GBP) as I still get on better with paper. If
>  you need more pins then just register for more, the registration number
> opens
>  up more pins. I have heard there are work arounds for more pins - but I
>  (personnaly) feel this is cheating on a very good deal.
>
>  Have fun,
>  Mike
>
>   >>
> I beg to differ.  Ivex makes crap!  Some executive took his high school kid's
> fortran project and thought he'd make a buck on it.
> Win Board is full of major bugs.  Its not worth the bits it is written with.
> Mike Mike Mike.  Confess........you haven't really used it for anything.  If
> you had you would be on a soap box (like I am) telling the world what a piece
> of dung this thing really is.  It smells so bad an African dung beetle
> wouldn't waste the time rolling it into a ball.
>
> My humble opinion.
> Dave Duley
I must agree with Dave.  We spent the money to have (I think) 500 pins.
My layout guy gave it a good try and then went back to a really old
version of Tango for layouts and for schematics...AutoCAD version 1.0!

Since then, I bought Eagle ($400 US/module) - not perfect, but as
someone recently pointed out, most sub-$1000 packages are.  BTW, we
bought only the layout and schematic capture modules, so I can't comment
on the autorouter.
--Matt