Is Altium free anywhere? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2023, 05:39:55 pm
content: Hi,Are there any countries/places in the world, where Altium is free, or very cheap?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2023, 07:22:56 pm
content: I thought you had already started working on an Altium design? And now you are asking about the licence cost?The short and long answer is no: Altium has unified pricing, so you pay the same everywhere, within a few normal variations of currency and the like.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2023, 09:25:16 pm
content: We have an Altium forum... why are you asking here.Anyway Dave just updated us on a cheap license:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/affordable-license/msg4857650/#msg4857650

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2023, 09:50:59 pm
content: Certainly - AD is routinely used by many engineers in relatively poor countries. And it's probably all perfectly legit licenses.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 08:43:52 am
content: No Altium is not free, nor cheap. 2k$/yr for individual is a lot.Just assume people borrow Altium from work, etc.

author: voltsandjolts
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 09:27:08 am
content: Quote from: Faringdon on May 11, 2023, 05:39:55 pmAltium seems extremely cheap, compared to the hundreds of hours of engineers' time you've wasted on this forum, with all your moronic nonsense BS threads.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 11:09:36 am
content: Any country who has it for free, is massively advantaged in the world of electronics.I am pretty certain you can get Altium licenses for next to nothing in certain parts of the world.....ive had people tell me this, who are from those places.All i can say is "come on KICAD".At least you can learn it for free....and use it for free.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 11:14:12 am
content: Quote from: Faringdon on May 14, 2023, 11:09:36 amYou can't get it legally for free or next to nothing.Those people are probably pirating it or, against the terms of the agreement, sublicencing a copy with multiple seats available.If you are doing free work at home it's vanishingly unlikely Altium will take any action except to disable your software (possibly). However if you are doing commercial work, you are at risk of being targeted by their licencing division. It seems, from at least one user's case, that they go after the company you are working for, too.Besides, at the hourly rate a PCB engineer can get in the UK (we pay up to £50 per hour for one) the cost of Altium (~£10,000 one off perpetual licence without support) is paid off by the time that engineer has done a couple of decent sized jobs.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 11:27:56 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 14, 2023, 11:14:12 amYou can. But it depends on the jurisdiction you are in and thus whether copyright is enforced. I don't think I'm telling anyone something new when I state that companies like Altium are very likely to create holes in their licensing system on purpose in order to gain traction in markets where they can't get into due to their pricing. Once those markets mature and the legal system improves, the money is raked in. See it like university licensing; get people used to a product and they are likely to keep using the product in their professional career. And this is not something that happens only far away. I've spend quite a few years in various jobs where the software provided by the company wasn't paid for.Meanwhile, Orcad is a much cheaper option compared to Altium with several advantages as well (faster and less buggy).

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 12:38:23 pm
content: Quote from: Faringdon on May 14, 2023, 11:09:36 amIf you are a student you will get access via university for the duration of your studies, the reason why is obvious, it's not very obvious as to why giving your work away would do you any good, would you work for free?KiCAD is quite usable, I went back to it after my escapade with circuit studio which is just Altium Designer really without the later features.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 01:37:47 pm
content: CircuitMaker is free:https://www.altium.com/circuitmaker/downloadSo is AutoTrax for DOS. Still works.https://www.altium.com/documentation/other_installers

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 01:42:16 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 14, 2023, 11:27:56 amAltium spent a long time watching with tears in their eyes as practically the entire Chinese design market uses Altium 99SE for free, it was the industry standard, and they couldn't do anything about it.They still struggled when I was there, and are still struggling today to convert these into legit licenses I'm sure.They don't do it deliberately.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 01:55:18 pm
content: QuoteThanks, this is what i'd also heard...it can only be a matter of time, before goverments round the rest of the world realise, that they must make either Altium, or an "Altium equivalent", free of charge in their own countries, otherwise they wont be able to compete.(ie buy out Altium and dish it out for free, or just encourage say KICAD more, say)

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 02:26:14 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on May 14, 2023, 12:38:23 pmOut of curiosity, what pushed you away from Circuit Studio towards KiCad?

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 02:34:57 pm
content: ..............Whilst we wait for @Simon to hopefully answer....ill speak on KICAD if i may.....i am certain it will stay free of charge, and will become "THE ONE". Knocking all others out of its way.....Unless Altium perhaps is bought out, and then dished out for free everywhere.....dont honestly known how Altium fully compares to KICAD, but am told KICAD is just as good....and can do the same high end stuff.I like Altium....but cant afford it...so having to use it now without familiarity....am still working on a small 4 layer board which i could have finished long ago if i had been allowed to use my "well known" Eagle Pro.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 03:03:03 pm
content: Quote from: Faringdon on May 14, 2023, 01:55:18 pmIf you seriously believe that the thing making the UK or other Western nations less competitive for engineering is Altium being free, you're nuts. Sorry if that offends you, but it's just so far down on the list of reasons.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 04:30:21 pm
content: Quote from: Faringdon on May 14, 2023, 02:34:57 pmNot in a million years.OK, maybe in amillion years. But right now, KiCad can't hold a candle to Altium or the other professional programs. Can you make it produce excellent boards? Absolutely. Does it support you in doing so the same way Altium can? Absolutely not.Basically, "KiCad is just as good as Altium" is a typical open-source software fanboy claim. It's just as untrue as the claims that "LibreOffice is just as good as Microsoft Office" or "GIMP is just as good as Photoshop". In every case, the open-source program can do all of the basics (and then some), but simply cannot compete with the feature sets that those established commercial programs built up over the course of decades.While I have every reason to believe that open-source server software (servers, databases, etc.) can do everything their commercial counterparts can, that simply isn't the case for desktop software. The fact that no open source desktop app has ever managed to dethrone its commercial counterparts... well that speaks volumes -- s does the fact that in many cases, open source server software has dethroned commercial equivalents. That means the market is willing to go open source when it's good enough. And the corollary that open source desktop software just isn't there. (Nor do I think it ever will on the whole, for various reasons, but that's well beyond the scope of this discussion.)As for your trouble with Altium: You really need to just watch some tutorials or something. I gave an Altium primer to the apprentices at my old work, and had them designing a little board in under 2 hours.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 06:33:34 pm
content: Thanks, being mentally challenged certainly doesnt help me learn Altium......but i got Eagle cracked inside of a day, and layed out an involved 4 layer board within 24 hours of using it.Being free, there were really good tutorials/vids available for Eagle.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 07:05:54 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 14, 2023, 02:26:14 pmCS had a very non illustrious career, it started out as overpriced and incredibly unstable from what I heard. By the time I bought into it the £2500 license was £900, then they did an "offer" for £400 and that offer never ended. I felt rather slighted as weeks after shelling out so much for such a poor product they made it clear that they would charge whatever it took to get people to buy it. So Farringdon, if you want AD then just buy CS assuming they are not giving it away now.Clearly CS was just a means to get you into AD, Farnell distribute it exclusively and Altium do not provide any support that is up to Farnell. Support was done by one bloke at Farnell. So Altium have no interest in CS, it is a crimpled piece of garbage. So bad that things like a BOM export required microsoft office and the export process took about 10 minutes (I am deadly serious). Any time I could not do something that you would think obviously such a program could do and contacted "support" I got back an email telling me that there was not a problem, you could do this if you used this long procedure. It was just silly. The last time I paid for the licence the bugs were not fixed, instead they added 3 features that were of no practical value like PDF export, pointless, you could already export a step file, and if you were deing 3D CAD your 3D CAD program would be able to spit out a 3D PDF. I just gave up.Naturally Altium have been after me ever since the day I bought it to buy AD, just a few days ago I replied to another email encouraging me to AD and told them to get lost.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 07:09:00 pm
content: Quote from: Faringdon on May 14, 2023, 01:55:18 pmI don't know what sort of fantasy land you live in. What has a national government got to do with how a private company distributes software? just because you can't have your expensive toy you want someone else to foot the bill. For goodness sake, what is it about AD that means you can't do your poxy SMPS designs in KiCAD like the rest of us?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 07:10:20 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 14, 2023, 04:30:21 pmKicad more or less killed Eagle (with a bit of help from Autodesk though) and several other low end PCB design packages. And Altium will be next in a couple of years. Altium may have a lot of features but the bugs and extremely low performance make that Altium sits between a rock and a hard place. It is too expensive to do simple boards with and it is not good enough for complex boards. Every SoC reference design I have come across is made using Orcad.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 07:23:35 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on May 14, 2023, 07:09:00 pmdid you not see who the poster is?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 07:37:56 pm
content: I did

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 09:50:49 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 14, 2023, 04:30:21 pmI don't know about Altium vs KiCAD, but I have to disagree with you about LibreOffice vs MS Office. I find MS Office virtually unusable. It's appalling. LibreOffice is much better. I've taken work home, just so I can use LibreOffice, because MS Office is too slow and clunky. It's not a matter of taking time to get used to it. I've used plenty of other GUIs in my time, not just on Windows, but other platforms and have definitely found MS Office to be one of the worst.Quote from: EEVblog on May 14, 2023, 01:42:16 pmIt's certainly true China's weak copyright system has benefited them hugely. It's very naive to believe it'll change soon. Plenty of people have said the same about democracy following wealth, but Singapore has demonstrated it doesn't always follow.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 10:21:28 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 14, 2023, 01:42:16 pmSorry, but how can near 100% market penetration be bad? Ofcourse nobody will officially admit that they tolerate piracy (not internally or externally). But financially it is a huge win as it takes zero marketing costs to win new customers. The customers are there, locked into the ecosystem and they only need to be made to pay. Imagine a Chinese company made a PCB design package and Altium would need to try and penetrate that market? It is almost a lost cause.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 02:41:25 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 14, 2023, 10:21:28 pmYes, it's not a bad thign to have everyone using a pirated version of sofwtare making it the defacto standard. Makes it easier to try and convert people over to actually paying for it.But what I'm saying is that they didn't deliberately do that, it's just the situation they found themselves in.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 04:02:03 am
content: It's a monopoly that old CADD dinosaurs have, as far as corporate use. It's got roots in the products developed, so big corps stay with it, recurring revenue. Although switching between Altium, Orcad, Mentor I've been through- it can be done. Capturing EE students with Uni courses using Altium really helps.Nobody appears to be at the wheel, over at Altium.Orphaned cloud-based products with no press release about their lifecycle.No innovation in features that are really needed. Does anyone there get off the golf course and manage the product from a PCB designer's point of view?I dislike the UI because it is always maximum mouse clicks. It's a scientific UI design, click click click click and click. Hello carpal tunnel syndrome.Massive bungling of their fucking libraries over the years, everyone has to make their own footprints from scratch over and over and over again towards trusted libraries.I think Kicad I have not tried but there seem to be libraries that are community-checked for errors and not part of some leach librarian company that can have component errors and fat bloated 3D models.Kicad needs an Altium importer and that would likely crater the dinosaur?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 04:45:10 am
content: KiCad can import Altium's schematics, but not the layouts nor libraries yet, that I know of.That said, there will be some work before KiCad can crater AD, even if it's a dinosaur.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 07:00:46 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 14, 2023, 09:50:49 pmWeirdly have the opposite opinion. MS Office isn't great, lots of weird formatting bugs. But far better than LibreOffice and I refuse to use anything other than the MS product for office tasks.But for CAD, I think KiCAD is there for 90% of use cases. One of the bigger hurdles will be getting engineers and contractors familiar with the package. If you advertise for a contract role for a guy with Altium experience, you'll fill it quickly. (We use contractors for PCB design - it wasn't and isn't my decision.) For KiCAD I suspect you'll be waiting for some time.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 07:19:59 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 15, 2023, 07:00:46 amOfftopic: Google's online word processing and spreadsheet are actually pretty good. It has improved a lot during the past couple of years. Every now and then I'm using the spreadsheet part of Libreoffice and that works quite well; it is better at importing CSV files compared to Excel. IOW: If you are basing your opinion on past experiences, you might want to retry.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 07:22:06 am
content: Quote from: floobydust on May 15, 2023, 04:02:03 amMaybe I'm biased, or I'm a dinosaur as well.. But libraries = Always make your own. I imported a Kicad design from 2021 the other day. Used the TPS63000 DC/DC chip from library. The libraries schematic symbol changed. It got migrated into my schematic and so RIP that design.IMO using externeral dependencies is always a shortcut. I made that design as a tryout for KiCad, and from time to time I open the design files since I need to fix some hardware issue on a batch of boards I've had assembled at JLC. Its very offputting that for every new Kicad version I install, it is nagging me with increasingly more popups on things to migrat from their library on the schematic or PCB. IMO this is a pure no-go for any CAD software that needs to support archivable designs.Importers are always a pain IMO. It's just not the same as native, as every tool used slightly different math to put their right angle tracks onto grid, used different layers or annotations for documentation, etc.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 07:59:51 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 14, 2023, 09:50:49 pmForget about the user interface for a moment. (Especially since that is, to an extent, a matter of taste and familiarity.)The issue is that LibreOffice's feature set isn't nearly as broad. It's more than enough for basic tasks, but it's simply missing many advanced things. So when people say it's "just as good", they're people who have yet to run into the absence of a feature. They don't consider that the other featuresare usedby other people, and aren't just useless fluff.(Also, they're much less disciplined about API stability. I worked at a software company whose product integrates with word processors. LibreOffice Writer was a constant problem, because the scripting API would often break with updates. Word's scripting and add-on APIs just worked. To this day they haven't even bothered trying to make an add-on for Writer.)It's the same with the other examples I gave: the feature sets simply are not there. They may be adequate for casual users. (Including people who occasionally use them for professional work.) But they aren't sufficiently feature-rich for serious professional use. You need features that simply aren't there. You may be able to achieve the same end result, but it'll take more work in the less-capable program, so with time being money, professionals will pay for the more efficient tool. And that's precisely why professionals aren't going to switch to KiCad in droves anytime soon.

author: tatel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 08:26:43 am
content: Quote from: tooki on May 14, 2023, 04:30:21 pmMaybe off-topic since I don't know about Altium/Kicad, but I have to disagree. I don't really like LibreOffice, but I don't think MSOffice is any better. It was funny when the .docx became a thing and suddenly MSOffice users with older versions couldn't open .docx documents. I know many people that changed to LibreOffice just for that. Of course, these were individuals. Bureaucrats and people in any companies just asked their bosses to upgrade.About Gimp/Photoshop, there's one thing Gimp never will do: to handle Pantone colors, because it's propietary. However if you work in pre-printing, you need to handle Pantone. Just imagine what will happen if say a big bank purchases a full page in your paper, then there's a disagreement about the color used in their corporate logo. Unless you can show evidence you used the correct Pantone reference, you are screwed big time. So, no, GIMP never will replace Photoshop in these habitats. But for any other uses, I would say yeah, GIMP is as good as Photoshop. Again, experienced users are the most reticent: where the fucking sharpen mask is in this crap?Things are different when getting into the server environment, there are people that knows better than average users, and average users usually don't notice which software is running in the servers, so no problem. A very marked point was when, after London Stock Exchange CTO said loud that, even if the most important stock exchanges around the world had already changed to open source because, well, RedHat and realtime trading, London was to remain with MS because they got full MS support. Then, the day Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were going to the sharks, London Stock Exchange system crashed, and the full MS support couldn't make it to stand up again in time. So UK/european sharks didn't got their cut. AFAIK, that CTO got fired, London Stock Exchange has RedHat now, and I never heard of any other CTO saying they were to remain with MS no matter what.I however agree with you in that time is money, and getting all the people proficient in a new software means a huge amount of money for a company, even if the features are there. Change will only happen when/if it makes sense crematistically.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 06:08:58 pm
content: The fact that Altium is the most commonly used one in China says it all..the Chinese are the worlds best EE's now...so if they pick Altium, it must be the best.....the Chinese could have hacked up any layout software...but they picked Altium...thats a stunning endorsment for Altium.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 06:17:47 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 15, 2023, 07:59:51 amWhat features does MS Office have that you absolutely need?I've found MS Office to be much worse than LO, when it comes to transferring files between versions. It would regularly break things more often. Pick your poison.Quote from: EEVblog on May 15, 2023, 02:41:25 amI don't see any evidence the Chinese copyright system will change and start to force Chinese companies to pay for Altium. Why would they? As I said it makes the government too much money in tax revenues. I bet they selectively enforce copyright. When it's a Chinese company, selling software to other countries, they definitely will enforce it, because it makes them money, but allowing people to use foreign software for free benefits them too much to stop.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 07:31:18 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 15, 2023, 07:00:46 amIf someone con't convert from one program to another then I'd not want to employ them. Trying to find someone at work, the best candidate in the last batch we looked at listed Altium as a skill but did not list electronics, I said no good to me, I want a brain not a copy paste machine, don't have the time to tell him what to do all day.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 08:18:24 pm
content: Converting from one program to another is never that mentally painful but I find most of the investment value of schematic/PCB CADD is instead in the libraries.Many 100's of hours, checking for errors, adding DFM etc. So if you jump ship, $$$$ labour costs to reinvent the wheel. No other software I know of has exclusive, proprietary libraries as a leech parasite that clings to you sucking the cash out of you lol. You have been assimilated lol.I tolerate a lot with freeware but do laugh and cry and swear when usingGIMPcompared to Photoshop. GIMP has a punishing UI, dare you try draw a circle with it lol. But it's still pretty powerful, well maintained and costs nothing.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 08:22:06 pm
content: QuoteI don't have an opinion either way on that, but just having Altium as the de facto standard surely means anyone co-designing with the Chinese would either have to pirate or pay for their own copy.Thinking that through, Altium would be a good match since it is backwards and forwards compatible in versions you could pirate and old version and your partners could be using the latest. If Kicad were in that boat then everyone would have to use the same version, and if you paid for the latest version (because, ethics) then your partners could be mighty pissed off at you.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 08:25:09 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on May 15, 2023, 08:18:24 pmoperation systems and microprocessors also tend to have a lock in effect

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 08:43:39 pm
content: Yes but if you know one program and have to use anther because say your new job uses it then I don't see the drama, if someone is going to make a fuss on their CV about which PCB program they are a master of then I'm not sure they will switch easily

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 08:54:41 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 15, 2023, 06:17:47 pmI didn’t say it wasn’t good enoughfor meso asking me for how it’s insufficient for me is not a fair question.Even so, “absolutely need” is a different bar from “good enough”, which is basically how it’s presented.Regardless, the situation is really simple: if it were “good enough” for most situations, it would be dominant in most environments. But it isn’t, so clearly it’snotgood enough.Ultimately, what annoys me is open source zealots who declare “it’s equivalent!” without understanding users’ needs. It’s dishonest, and that annoys me. A fair comparison acknowledges that the commercial product may have some real advantages, and the open source product may have some real disadvantages. But the fawning over the open source software is often religious, not based on actual experience in using it in a given situation.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 08:59:47 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on May 14, 2023, 12:38:23 pmGiven the OP, my first question would be whether anyone wouldpayhim for one of his SMPS designs.My second question would be in what wayfor his tasksa free Altium would make someone "...massivelyadvantaged ...", given that KiCADreally isfree. (Or is it merely a case of a bad workman blaming their tools?)My third question would be whether the OP has returned to his traditional random questions eventually leading to "China is unfair" rants.EDIT: reading more of the thread, I am completely unsurprised

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 09:15:53 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on May 15, 2023, 08:43:39 pmIt's not as trivial as you expect and who are you to say the switch is easy?One engineering team I worked with got the command from corporate HQ to dump _____ and change over to Mentor. A political move.Anyway, the handful of engineers struggled to get up to speed with the software and couldn't. It's terrible to "learn as you go", nothing intuitive, no on-line help etc.Group meetings, placing calls to their Support line... we were told you also had to have taken their courses on the software."Oh, how much are these?" Well, it was thousands of dollars and of course corporate laughed and said no way, suck it up, it wasn't budgeted.The entire engineering team got screwed by having different software dumped in their lap, no consideration or awareness of the learning curve or training required because asshole exec's never actually use the stuff.The Project Schedule is expected to keep rollin' with no delays. Since product development is always a crisis, it was a great way to scuttle the team's productivity. Dumbest move I've ever seen. And to maintain old product designs you still needed licenses for the old software.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 09:18:12 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 15, 2023, 08:54:41 pmI can tell you how shit MS excel is, scientists just gave up trying to stop excel changing the name of a gene into a date and just changed the name of the gene. I have also been constantly frustrated by how excel decides for you and destroys data. I use Libreoffice calc instead as it is quicker for doing the simple stuff as it does not get in the way all the time trying to be "helpful". I found a similar thing with word versus writer, I just got so fucking fed up with word changing what I had done as it decided what I was trying to do and was wrong all the time with no obvious way to stop it.But I agree, just assuming that the open source stuff is better just because it's open source is not a good starting point. I find that either commercial developers do not use their own product or that they work for a stupid taskmaster that dictates also without using their own product. On the other hand I have tended to find that open source stuff is written by the people using it so they tend to nat make their lives and that of any other user an utter missery - there are exceptions of course and many free programs were clearly written to serve a niche so tight that you wonder why the developer bothered releasing the monstrosity that solved their particular problem onto the bewildered public.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 09:20:47 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on May 15, 2023, 09:15:53 pmI'm not talking about changing over within the same organization or using something that apparently is hard work. I have used several and they are generally about the same. I'd not expect a new person to be just turning new boards out next day but if knowing one program is such a skill then uh. You got a problem.

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 09:37:02 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 14, 2023, 02:26:14 pmI bought Circuit Studio four years ago and there have been zero updates since then.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 09:40:32 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on May 15, 2023, 09:20:47 pmHow are we measuring the difficulty changing over, learning the new software?If it's taking a long time, surely it's due to low IQ? How many hours are you allotting for the new staff to get up to speed?I saw many well-educated, intelligent EE's choke when expected to figure it out on their own. Because CADD software complexity is ever increasing and most has old legacy and clutzy UI to make it harder. No EE likes to be in a new job and starting from scratch with the tools. Or even hired in the first place - employers want the skills right off the bat.Try sit down with AutoCAD or SolidWorks and tell me you can pick that up in a few days - no, you need the courses on it and months of experience.Still thinking a software change is not difficult - it trashed morale, needed new libraries built, and months before people were fluent, and even then slow going.We are assuming it's no big deal to change over and I say careful, it may no longer be trivial.

author: HobGoblyn
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 09:54:57 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 15, 2023, 02:41:25 amTrue story.In my Atari ST days I was given a pirated copy of Steinbergs Pro 24, music midi recording software. This was in the 80s. I was heavily into synthesisers, I loved it.Steinberg then replaced Pro 24 with a completely revamped software called Cubase. I bought it.Over the years I have probably spent over £10k with Steinberg, this is just for me, at home, nothing to do with business.Plenty of competition, Pro Tools seems to be the industry standard for recording studios etc, then there’s Logic Pro on the Mac.But no matter how good those are, I’ve used Steinberg all my life and I’ve no reason to change now, all from that pirated software in the 80s

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 11:48:30 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on May 15, 2023, 09:40:32 pmNot necessarily. Sometimes the tools are justpeverselycomplicatedA few decades ago I saw people using Mentor Graphics schematic and layout software, in particular the amount of work they had to do to get anywhere, and how long it took to do anything graphic on high-end workstations. I was using the DOS variant of Orcad on a bog-standard PC, and decided I had better things to do with my brainpower (e.g. get the circuit designed and built).TheMentalMentor Graphics users were rather sniffy, and refused to believe that you didn't need a mouse. Theygaspedwhen I showed them how fast and easily I could do complex graphic tasks using only keyboard commands. One I remember was moving a component while only disturbing the connections to the minimal useful extent. The command was BMBE<move with cursors><ESC> (BMBE was block mark begin end).Sometimes tools make common tasks unnecessarily complicated, slow and error prone. (Think of C++)QuoteI was always, by choice, in that position. Our job was to creating the concepts and implementations, and working out what tools were necessary were necessary.Employers knew that and picked people that were capable and flexible - and a principal part of that is the ability to pick up skills as you go along.

author: MathWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 11:10:36 am
content: Quote from: hans on May 14, 2023, 08:43:52 amWhat makes it so good or useful,,, or niche, that a program is worth that much....and per year ??

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 02:30:28 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 14, 2023, 07:10:20 pmKiCAD is OK, and it improved a lot sine the beginning. And it's possible to compete with altium in the "let's connect the dots with lines without crossing" parts of the software quite easily, but that's not what Altium is about, and it hasn't been for a while now. Right now I'm reviewing my ECN procedures, because (I think) it's quite possible that I can automate the whole thing in Altium, saving hours of work for the tiny "let's change a capacitor" kinda changes, automatically informing the people implementing it, and all without me copying the same info over and over again. And while it's still compliant with regulations.So sure, you can make green things in Eagle, or even in KiCAD, but when you want to automate documetnation, buy components, keep supply chain functional, they are miles away.And the IC design companies are going to use Cadence software because they get it basically free due to the other tools they use. But TI uses Altium for example.Quote from: MathWizard on May 16, 2023, 11:10:36 amI don't know, how much do think an engineer costs while spending a thousand hour learning a new software and messing up a board because some silly mistake?

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 03:27:17 pm
content: Or the cost/salary of an EE engineer. Can easily run 100-150$/hr. 2k$ license = 13-20 hrs max saved. In 1 year! That's only 15-25min a week.For a business having a full-time CAD user, it's a no brainer. For a private individual, maybe not so much.The amount of busy-work I've seen a colleague perform with Eagle was immense. Every BOM had to be manually formatted and edited.Editing schematics and PCBs was tedious. Right click -> "select group". Drag. Okay, use tool, move. Oof, misclick. CTRL+Z. Oh lost selection.. okay again.. Right click -> "Select group". Drag. Okay, now I want to edit the footprints of all precision resistors from 0420 to 0603. Oh I need to do it 1 by 1? Okay.. right click, edit properties.. paste. Only 15 more dialogs to go..I agree with Nctnico that KiCad has completely voided the need for Eagle. However, I never think the canonical entry of designs is a problem with these CAD tools. You can pretty much represent any schematic/PCB artwork in all CAD packages nowadays. However, how easy/quick it is to draw&edit. Altium is still miles ahead. To me, Altium feels like editing using easy to edit sticky notes, while Eagle felt like trying to draw and revise schematics with acrylic paint and perma markers.E.g. in Altium you have property filtering, property querying, stack based selections (instead of "tools") and selection editor. I use it all the time. I don't think Eagle has any of this, or not in the versions when I made the jump. I think in KiCad you can do certain stuff with the scripting language.. which is useful, but it's not going to be a 30sec job for the odd things to change on a PCB.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 05:27:11 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 15, 2023, 08:54:41 pmMarket dominance often has nothing to do with superiority, or even being good enough. It often comes down to vendor lock-in and that both people and organisations are reluctant to change.I dislike zealotry in general, whether it be pushing open source, or MS Office.I agree LO is not equivalent to MS Office. I my opinion it's better. You're completely free to disagree and that's fine. I have no intention of trying to push anyone into using it. Use whatever meets your needs. I certainly don't think open source software is necessarily better than propriety. In some cases it is: open source UNIX is widely considered superior to Windows as a server, but not so good as a desktop. I happen to use it as a desktop, but I'm in the minority, which is fine and I can see why the majority of people prefer Windows.Quote from: Simon on May 15, 2023, 09:20:47 pmGnumeric is preferred by many in the scientific field. For a long time, it could handle larger spreadsheets, than Excel.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 06:55:34 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on May 15, 2023, 09:40:32 pmI have found that by and large ECAD is the same process and methods most of the time. It's not too difficult to get the basics if you need to.3D CAD is what you give an example of, this is somewhat different. I was trained on Solid Edge, I then tried to use free CAD, and my god, I take issue with those that claim it is the greatest etc, it's appalling. Then I started my current job, we use Creo, of fuck! what a mess that is, I now see where freeCAD came from, beyond it's actual limitations it reminds me of creo. 3D CAD programs have nowhere near the pretty standard way of working that ECAD has, it's a different beast. Having learnt one I was more prepared to learn another, but still it can be a challenge.

author: c64
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2023, 11:09:49 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 14, 2023, 01:42:16 pmWhy do they use this particular version and not something more recent?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 12:04:45 am
content: Altium Designer is now 5% cheaper, they have given me the coupon code ADIL5 to share.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 08:03:57 am
content: Quote from: Simon on May 16, 2023, 06:55:34 pmI've only dabbled in 3D design, but it seems to me there is a lot in common with programming paradigms and languages that support a paradigm.There's the OpenSCAD type, where you add/subtract parameterised geometric shapes. Very similar to procedural languages.There are constraint-based tools, where specify a subset of relationships between objects and let the tool work out the unspecified relationships. Much like declarative languages.There are wire-mesh tools, where you squeeze and pull the mesh to get what looks right. Much like office diagram tools.You have to choose the paradigm (and therefore tool) that best matches the way you think about and express your solution to the problem. Hence if you want to make a box, don't use a wire mesh tool; do use OpenSCAD. OTOH if you want to make a sculpture of a bust, then don't use a constraint-based tool but do use a wire mesh tool.The analogies with programming languages is, I hope, uncontroversial.

author: MarginallyStable
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 05:12:29 pm
content: QuoteWeb browsers is but one example I feel you are incorrect in this statement.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 07:49:49 pm
content: Commercial web browsers got dethroned by Microsoft embedding IE in Windows. Nothing to do with open source.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 09:20:34 pm
content: Quote from: MarginallyStable on May 18, 2023, 05:12:29 pmHmmm, true, I think that is worth a half point.I mean, the leading browsers themselves (Chrome, Safari) aren'tfullyopen-source, but the underlying rendering engines are. I think Firefox is the only fully open-source one that manages to crack 2% market share (and not by much).I'm sure there are assorted little utilities and the like where open-source has nudged out commercial, but in terms of big stuff... I'm still waiting.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 09:21:24 pm
content: Quote from: PlainName on May 18, 2023, 07:49:49 pmIE was a commercial web browser. The fact that they bundled it with Windows didn't make it non-commercial.

author: switchabl
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 10:58:26 pm
content: Blender is probably the big one on the desktop, no? It hasn't replaced commercial 3D software (which seems like an almost impossibly high bar) but I think is now considered one of the "serious" options.Also, for better or worse, I guess Eclipse still makes up a good chunk of the IDE market (and VS Code is getting quite popular among the more lightweight code editors).

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 11:51:42 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 18, 2023, 09:21:24 pmI didn't say it was non-commercial. Please don't read into my posts stuff I haven't written.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 19, 2023, 08:47:03 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on May 18, 2023, 08:03:57 amYou refer to programming languages, yes open source 3D cad is still stuck there, like how I dabbled with 2D cad at school in a windows program that basically had a command line. These days serious 3D cad tools have a nice gui, it means that we can create as our imagination imagines rather than trying to remember syntax and it's easy and flexible.The reason why Creo is so terrible is that it was very much a command line program that they shoe horned a GUI around. I read online that Creo is great when you know how to use it. I take this to mean that Creo is crap and once you know how to use it you won't admit to using something that has to be the winner of the worlds worse commercial GUI. FreeCAD follows directly in it's footsteps with the added bonus that it can't do much of the math required. I understand, the math is complex, even Solid Edge up until a few years ago would often complain of a "zero thickness manifold" this was code for, you have to surfaces that touch in an infinitesimally small point that is less than the smallest unit the software can work in, indeed 2 tangent cylinders don't actually share anything. FreeCAD has this sort of error constantly on anything sensible while it claims to be great, whilst also being at version 0.20.2, so go figure.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 19, 2023, 09:11:16 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on May 16, 2023, 06:55:34 pmUntil you want to do something complex and want to have the software to do the heavy lifting for you. I have worked with PCB layout tools you can get proficient with within a few days and with tools that litterally take weeks. But the investment of time in the latter pays back in spades for complex boards.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 20, 2023, 04:43:27 pm
content: QuoteThanks, this is interesting, by "support", you mean Altium can send out Applications Support Engineers?...and KICAD can't?.....

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 20, 2023, 05:17:54 pm
content: Quote from: Faringdon on May 20, 2023, 04:43:27 pmYou are reading this wrong. The remark is about the difference in features. You can buy professional support (=help to use the software) for Kicad.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2023, 08:35:36 pm
content: Quote from: PlainName on May 18, 2023, 07:49:49 pmIn the 90s Microsoft had a grand plan of owning the Internet by pushing IE only standards, but their wicked little plan failed when people noticed how buggy and insecure IE was compared to the alternatives. IE was firstly de-throned by open source browsers, but mobile phones with fully functional browsers were the final nail in the coffin.Quote from: nctnico on May 20, 2023, 05:17:54 pmJust one question given the price of Altium, I question why it's so popular. I would have thought it would be better to hire another PCB developer, even on a part time basis and get them to use KiCAD.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2023, 08:47:00 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 28, 2023, 08:35:36 pmUh-huh. But you'll appreciate that cameafterIE did for the competition. So, again, open source didn't screw commercial browsers (that was IE) but stiffed IE once it was heading for domination.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2023, 08:49:15 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 28, 2023, 08:35:36 pmYou'll soon find Kicad is not as productive as a commercial package. Logistics is the keyword here. Altium's popularity is largely due to agressive pricing strategy in the early days which made it a kind of standard. But IMHO it is the Windows of PCB CAD programs. Many use it, few actually like it -especially when exposed to alternative commercial packages-. Personally I won't touch Altium; way too cumbersome, slow and frugal to use.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2023, 08:57:54 pm
content: Quote from: PlainName on May 28, 2023, 08:47:00 pmIE was a commercial browser and it was screwed by open source. That was the point.Quote from: nctnico on May 28, 2023, 08:49:15 pmI get that Altium is better than KiCad, but is it really worth more than an extra person? I understand that's the case for some tools, but question whether it's the case for Altium?Forgive me. I've not done PCB design for years.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2023, 09:11:19 pm
content: QuoteOnly in so far as it was supplied by Microsoft. You couldn't buy it nor could the not have it. It was not commercial in the sense that the competition was: in that a user could choose to buy it or not buy, like the products it replaced.QuoteIt enabled open source browsers, since that was the only way to have a decent alternative to IE.Specifically, since y'all seem to have short memories, IE was embedded to kill off Netscape Navigator, at which it was successful. Netscape threw in the towel, understandably, and the source for their browser became Firefox.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2023, 10:56:08 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 28, 2023, 08:57:54 pmAltium had a very powerful set of tools from early on (say 200x) but haven't really added that much since (hence why many shops are happy using old versions such as '99). KiCad is rapidly catching up and will soon be a very viable alternative, 10 years ago it was still a toy, 5 years ago it was functional but still had many gaps, give it a little more time....

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2023, 11:04:28 pm
content: Quote from: c64 on May 16, 2023, 11:09:49 pmBeing from the era of offline software it was easy to share licenses without tracking. People got used to the software and it stuck around as there was no need for anything more.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2023, 08:55:17 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 28, 2023, 08:57:54 pmWhere are you going to hire someone for $5k per year?Its not worth an extra person no, maybe 5-20% of your PCB time or something.

author: Bobertsawesome
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2023, 10:05:06 pm
content: If I recall correctly, not even the almighty Dave gets Alitum for free anymore

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2023, 10:18:39 pm
content: Quote from: Bobertsawesome on May 29, 2023, 10:05:06 pmThey renewed it for him recently, only after a few complaints.Any software company should be throwing licenses at the top relevant youtubers in their field, its dumb not to.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2023, 04:21:25 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on May 29, 2023, 08:55:17 pmOffshore to India?Thanks. I thought it was more than that.

author: asmi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2023, 08:40:48 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on May 29, 2023, 10:18:39 pmTo be fair I can't remember last time I've seen AD featured in Dave's videos... But maybe I missed something - YT has been rather funky for me lately. Or always.

author: asmi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2023, 08:45:34 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 30, 2023, 04:21:25 pmThe kind of person you can hire for that money won't even know the word "resistor".Quote from: Zero999 on May 30, 2023, 04:21:25 pmOnce you invested into seats, maintaining update subscription is not very expensive (comparatively speaking of course). Currently it's about 2k USD per year, but I'm sure those who own multiple seats can negotiate better prices. Even I got 20% off renewal price without any real haggling - simply asked the rep if she can get any discount for me, and she did.

author: eugene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2023, 01:36:33 am
content: KiCad is not quite ready to replace Altium for two reasons. The first and biggest is that, as already stated, it simply lacks some features that Altium has. But, nobody necessarily needs to wait for the KiCad developers to implement the feature. No, I'm not talking about the fact that KiCad is open source, so you can modify the source code if you want. I'm talking about the fact that KiCad offers a direct way to implement functionality or integrate with other software through the use of plugins. You don't have to bribe the KiCad developers; specific features are developed by the people that actually need them. So the idea of a commercial company hiring a KiCad developer is only slightly off the mark. If the company has a software development team, then they can task one of its members with building the plugin they need.I'm not saying that every feature in Altium could be replaced (successfully) with a KiCad plugin, but lots can. There's been requests for integration with a parts database. I haven't tried it, but I'd be wildly surprised if it weren't possible to do that in a variety of different ways with a plugin.The other reason that KiCad is not ready to replace Altium is that anyone that works with others using Altium need it themselves. As a consultant, when a customer requires me to use Altium I ask for a computer with all the software installed. When I'm done with the project I return the computer. The rest of the time I use KiCad because I don't need the extra features. But, if I did need to buy anAltium license, then I would probably just use it all the time and not bother with KiCad at all. See the problem? So there's an entire market that KiCad will not penetrate until it can at least open Altium projects, make modifications, and save the project in Altium file format. Maybe that could be done with a plugin?

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2023, 09:11:29 am
content: Quote from: eugene on May 31, 2023, 01:36:33 amThe problem with “round-trip” editing of files in another format is that your program then needs to reproduceallthe functionality of the format.A simple but real-world example: any spreadsheet that wants to open Excel spreadsheets needs to support two internal date formats, the “1900 epoch” dates originating in the DOS source code, and the “1904 epoch” originating in the oldest classic Mac version. And each date format has different pros and cons, such that even today, there is occasionally the need to set a spreadsheet to 1904 dates. And each one has its own quirks. Similarly, Lotus 1-2-3 had some weird date handling bugs, so an Excel spreadsheet can be set to 1-2-3 mode to reintroduce those bugs, to allow formulas to work as expected.So as a spreadsheet developer, if you want to import Excel files reliably, you have to have code to handle every one of those weird date formats, even if 99% of files don’t use them.It’s one thing to provide a lossy import function (like how Altium can import KiCad projects). But seamless round-trip editing requires you to robustly support all the major features, and most of the minor ones. The only thing you can leave out are things that I’d call “automation”, that is, features that help you do things, but which aren’t inherent properties of the objects. (For example, an autorouter: its output is tracks which could just as well have been placed by hand. Or via stitching tools. Whereas the properties of the vias need to be supported.)

author: eugene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2023, 05:08:15 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 31, 2023, 09:11:29 amYeah. I don't honestly see round trip editing in the foreseeable future. Which means that Altium will continue to dominate the commercial market for quite a while.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2023, 05:51:02 pm
content: Quote from: eugene on May 31, 2023, 01:36:33 amThat is nonsense. None of the PCB design packages have formats that are really interchangeable because different software uses different primitives. Simple things like pads and copper pours are likely not even compatible because they are defined using different parameters. And it is not necessary to have a universal fileformat either. It is not like Altium is the defacto standard for all PCB design anyway. So in the end it is pretty simple: you stick with what is suitable for a project c.q. the environment you find yourself in. For the projects I'm doing, I rarely (=never) encounter reference designs made using Altium.

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2023, 07:28:14 pm
content: "many free programs were clearly written to serve a niche so tight that you wonder why the developer bothered releasing the monstrosity that solved their particular problem onto the bewildered public"The real question is why the bewildered public are trying to use those solutions when they don't have exactly the same specific niche.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2023, 09:49:35 pm
content: Quote from: asmi on May 30, 2023, 08:40:48 pmyoutube.com/watch?v=HJVy8LAI_Bc