kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 1 Sep 2010, Alex G wrote:

> No, but I did write much more complex stuff (with tons of college-level
> physics equations) in a couple of hours with Lyx. Try and beat that.
> Wait, you probably will. :-p

I don't know... I only skimmed the 'Higher Math' chapter in the LaTeX
Companion.

> > Orcad sucks by definition (I think is the only cad of the world which
> > broke backward compatibility on its own files...)
>
> That is just hilarious.

It's not hilarious when you have to ask someone for an 'old orcad
version' to read you board files. Also, I think it's the only one to
have binary files instead of text files.

> They actually have an autorouter. (ie: no need to route boards by hand).

Look around and you'll see that most people don't actually use
autorouters (unless for unimportant tracks, like led lines). Most of my
work is mixed signal (in industry) so good luck telling your 'average'
autorouter to: 1) drop power vias to the bypass capacitor on the other
side of the power pin, 2) correctly do guard rings about instrumentation
amplifiers, 3) switching power supplies layout where you have to do
kelvin sense (and it's actually only one net) 4) be actually so smart to
don't route your bridge sense lines near to said power supplies 5) star
routing ground and power supplies ... and so on.

I actually used the kicad autorouter for inspiration when pulling the
last tracks on a busy board (where last tracks are usually unimportant
things like logic pull-up networks and buzzer drivers :D).

Please note that I haven't said a thing about modern high speed design
(mostly because I don't have experience in them). A good autorouter
could actually help pulling an LVDS or some restricted impedance line,
but then you enter anyway on the realm of 'every track is a trasmission
line which must be simulated anyway'. You will need bigger guns for that
stuff than eagle or kicad (and maybe even orcad).

The next big feature for pcbnew should be a track pusher/shover. I want
it :D Sadly I have *no idea* on how it could be implemented.

> As I stated earlier, the only thing in kicad that a plummer could clean
> is the autorouter. Just the obscenely numerous plot formats are amazing.
> It's the only Plot'n'Play package I came across. :)

I pledge guilty for all these plot formats. It's my fault :P

--
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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