--- Matt Ancona <MattA@EDL.COM> wrote:
> Thanks to all that replied to my post so far.
> I've noticed a couple of things.  1) No one
> mentioned Ivex or EWB. Why?

About a year ago I called to order Multisim and
Multiroute because the price was right and the
products looked good; it was a bit of an impulse
decision but I wanted to make the move from perfboard
to PCB and it seemed like the right time. Anyway,
their automated phone system promised that someone
would get back to me within 3 hours. They finally
called me a week and a half later, and by that point
I'd built the things I needed on perfboard and they
worked well enough that I didn't need PCBs. These
days, I use Tango and I'm thinking of making the move
to AutoTraxEDA.

3) No one has seemed to address the library
> problem.  Everyone needs schematic symbols, PCB
> footprints, and some need spice models.  Yet all of
> these programs have their own libraries.  Why isn't
> there a standard format that manufactures of
> components can use to build symbols and data files
> for their parts?  Why isn't there (unless there is
> and I don't know of it) a professional association
> pushing for such standards?

Well, there is EDIF, which has support for schematics,
netlists, PCBs, etc but I've mostly seen it in digital
design packages (I'm _pretty_ sure it describes analog
circuits as well). There's also been some development
in this area by using XML to define cross platform
libraries:

http://www.spincircuit.com/press_release/press_XMLSymbols.html

Right now it looks like you need a translator to
translate between the XML and whatever package you're
using, but hey, it's a start! As far as organizations
working on the problem, check out
http://www.si2.org/... looks like they're working on a
cross platform system.

- T.C.




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