protel used to have a dos version with autorouter & schematic.
it was a lot cheaper than protel99.
personally i think protel 98 is better value (only used the demo)A LOT CHEAPER T
OO!
i know someone who has protel99 , few bugs requuires patches.
can't verify though as i've never used it!!
TFYT
glen

William J. Kitchen wrote:

> > After all I keep hearing on this list, I am not sure that any other package
> > is necessarily better. I keep hearing about Eagle, which sounds good,
> > so I may have to give that one a try.
>
> My personal favorite by far is Protel (their full-featured commercial
> package, not the easy-trax freeware).  Unfortunately, it doesn't come
> cheap (about $5K USD).  But to be fair, you do get a lot for that (very
> capable schematic capture, excellent PCB layout with good autorouting
> capability, signal integrity analysis, analog/digital simulation, and PLD
> design).  It's just awesome. The price isn't really so bad when you consider
> the number of tools, the quality of the tools, and the integration between
> them.  Probably out of reach for most casual users, but definitely worthy of
> consideration if you make your living designing circuits.  Also, expect to
> spend about $1K per year on upgrades if you want to keep it up to date.
> Not cheap at all.  But very good.
>
> My biggest complaint about it is that it isn't available for Linux.  That
> makes Eagle attractive.  Eagle is quite respectable when compared
> against other products of similar price.  But it pales by comparison to
> Protel's capabilities.  Given the price difference, I can't fault it for that,
 but it
> just isn't in the same league.
>
> To be fair, I have seen comments from people who strongly dislike Protel's
> tools.  So when choosing a package the best advice is to get the demos
> and judge for yourself.  Personal taste and work style can have a big effect
> on what tool will work best for you.  If someone says a particular package
> sucks or that it's unintuitive, that may only mean that it doesn't fit the way
> they thing.  But it doesn't necessarily mean it won't fit the way you think.
> YMMV.
>
> ---
>                                         Peace,
>                                         William Kitchen
>                                         bill@iglobal.net
>
> The future is ours to create.