They also use a cryptic and hard to use interface so you have a steep learning curve to get anything done. Presumably the thought is that if you invest a significant amount of time learning it you'll be inclined to stay with it. Orcad/Cadence bought out microsim-pcboards a few years ago and abandon support for the product. I didn't care for the interface on Orcad so I stuck with pcboards, bugs and all --even after being mega old. I did look at protel 98se and it did look reasonable; we ran into some cut backs so we didn't make the purchase anyway; looks like that was a good thing, as it too is becoming an orphaned product. I'll keep using my pcboards for a while, hoping that the dongle doesn't wear out. Stupid things hasps... BTW, microsim pcboards used specctra as the autorouting engine; the protel product seemed to work similarly well in an informal evaluation. I tend to rip up and manually run traces anyway so I didn't evaluate that as critically as you probably are looking for. (We don't do 6 layer pc motherboards or anything on that level here... :') ) -Dal ----- Original Message ----- From: "David VanHorn" > Because it takes you much longer to admit that it's worhless junk, if you pay $10,000 for it. The price also helps dispel the bad press. "Hey, it sells for 10 grand, it must be pretty decent".. > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList > mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu