Altium Designer 14 . sneak preview - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 08:08:20 pm
content: Coming early October to a computer near you ...Make sure you are sitting down firmly for this one...Note: I'm not responsible for chins slamming into desks , eyes popping out of their sockets, nor for mopping up puddles of drool.I'll upload the HD later todayThis is a semirigid board. The round parts are rigid boards and they are interconnected with a flex part.You can define the bend radiuses and bending order and direction. Altium will do the entire placement verification in 3D . So if you place a part on one of the hard boards , and a part on the other hard board , Altium will verify that they won't touch once the board is folded in 3d space.Oh, and there's one more thing. Keep your eyes peeled for the press release coming in the next few weeks.AD14 will have an Eagle importer ... and there is a reason for that ... that's all i will or can say.

author: Fsck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 08:10:12 pm
content: Someone telling you to sit down usually means bad news.. scared to watch it.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 10:19:46 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 25, 2013, 08:08:20 pmIt's the "entry level" version they are supposed to be coming out with.My guess is they will screw up the pricing and/or target market feature set, but I hope I'm wrong.

author: george graves
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 10:35:52 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on September 25, 2013, 10:19:46 pmYou mean, not "free" for entry level users? Otherwise I'll stick with eagle. It does what I need it to do, and I hate learning new cad software.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 10:42:03 pm
content: I held onto my jaw to keep it from dropping.... but all that happened was I couldn't fit my coffee cup to my mouth...Quote from: free_electron on September 25, 2013, 08:08:20 pmThat's frightening.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 10:42:08 pm
content: Quote from: george graves on September 25, 2013, 10:35:52 pmI don't know, but that would be my guess on the first way they can screw this up.They MUST offer a free version in order to capture the hacker/maker/hobbyist market from Eagle.The other way would be to sell the entry level version for 4 figures instead of 3 figures.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 11:14:19 pm
content: It doesn't have to be free...(if it was up to me) I'd probably make it 50-60$ with some limitations (2 layers only let's say, less than one pcb panel size, *maybe* pin/pad count restrictions like diptrace), no tech support just forum access and a simple protection, like username or serial. Then offer a version with less limitations like 4-6 layers, full panel etc for 100-150$ with option to upgrade to higher versions, fpga support etc etc. I'd buy one of those 100-150$ versions any day.The cheap version will be pirated easily (due to easy to crack protection) and basically capture the eagle market, hobbyists etc and it's basically just like free but altium maintains their reputation and so on...

author: george graves
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 11:22:06 pm
content: Quote from: mariush on September 25, 2013, 11:14:19 pmWell checking thepiratebay shows that ver 13 has been cracked and you can pirate it. Sooo....even with that, I rarely see any hack/makers using it. So as Dave said, they will have to make it free IMHO.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 11:22:15 pm
content: Quote from: mariush on September 25, 2013, 11:14:19 pmIf you know that then why not have a free version and make it legit?Maybe make it non-commercial. With an exact same $50 version making it "legit" for commercial use.For people like me to be able to say "use Altium because it's FREE" is a huge deal. No bloggers or websites etc will publicly go out and encourage you to pirate it.I would not make the next rung up version any cheaper than say $250. I think $250-$500 is the sweet spot.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 12:20:51 am
content: Is it really fair to price a tool like altium in the same range as eagle?

author: fpga
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 12:22:25 am
content: It is very disappointing.Instead of focusing on fixing and improving their core product (PCB design software) they are ignoring what engineers really need and focusing on the flashy, sexy stuff for their sales guys to show off.Their PADs importer has been broken for years. Yes, it kind of, sort of works, but it creates a such a mess with phantom nets, missing nets, mis-sized and misplaced text, mis-sized pads, etc. Generally with so many hidden issues, that one is generally safer off redoing the artwork from scratch. Yet, converting PADs and OrCAD/Allegro customers is a far more lucrative endeavor than Eagle customers or hobbyists.Their support for routing high speed parallel traces, such as DDR3, is buggy and awkward. It is very messy to do pad to pad length matching and there is no support for taking into account package delays. Both latest version 12 and version 13.3 report erroneous trace lengths. Everyone I've talked to either does this manually, trace segment by segment, or simply uses another tool for for boards with DDR3 memory.Their support for automating the creation of complex symbols from FPGA constraints files is unusable. For some reason, they choose to ignore how today's boards with complex FPGAs are designed and what is really needed.Their design rules checking is outdated.Their signal integrity is a bad joke. I wouldn't expect a 3D solver, but at least a basic 2D solver for identifying crosstalk and impedance related issues.These are the capabilities that today's board designers need and want. But instead, they give us:Vaults -- to store our design databases in Asia. I'll keep my design data on a secure NAS behind a firewall.MCAD -- cute, but anyone doing real 3D machining will use a real 3D CAD package such as SolidWorks.FPGA tools -- to replace latest vendor provided IDEs, IP, and FPGA support with decade old FPGAs, proprietary, hobby/academic methodology, and buggy IP with no verification.Embedded Software tools -- that only work with their Nanoboard based designs.BOM integrated to distributors -- importing erroneous distributor parts data into you design and linking to broken web links, no thanks.Extensive vault based symbols -- that are all autogenerated and generally unverified. I was lured to their parts symbols, only to find useless material. I'll stick to doing all symbols myself.3D Viewing of Semirigid boards -- cute, but I doubt even 1% of customers would do semirigid boards, and of those perhaps .01% would rely on Altium for that.Muzak while routing -- (unconfirmed).I spend far more money each year on Altium than on the computer equipment. I really do want Altium Designer to be the ideal tool for PCB design. However, rather than seizing the opportunity to overtake the competition, they have grown complacent with their core product, neglecting it with overgrown bugs, and rather are chasing over the sexy show features.Mentor has started to admit that their products have serious issues, and have started promising to get their development team back on track. Perhaps its time for Altium to do the same.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 12:27:34 am
content: Quote from: fpga on September 26, 2013, 12:22:25 am

author: fpga
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 12:29:15 am
content: Oh, forgot to mention:Altium has removed all product manuals and tutorials. Their reasoning is that it impacts their ability to sell training classes. If customers cannot figure out how to use their product by trial and error, they will be forced to take their training classes. Besides, they have a shortage of English speaking employees. Their answer to documentation is community forums.My opinion is that if their training classes are so bad (or expensive) that they have problem selling them, they should improve them and offer better value, not remove the product manuals.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 12:34:44 am
content: Quote from: fpga on September 26, 2013, 12:22:25 amI have done that on V10, a very lame experience and am bitterly disappointed they haven't progressed in this area, especially in this day and age.I've seen how Allegro handles this sort of thing and is something altium really need to get onto. The purported time saved with their BOM/vault bullshit is wasted exponentially in having to work around lacking core functionality

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 12:34:59 am
content: Quote from: fpga on September 26, 2013, 12:29:15 amSince when?http://wiki.altium.com/display/ADOH/Getting+Started+with+Altium+Designerhttp://altiumvideos.live.altium.com/Yes, they don't have a decent fixed PDF manual any more, but that's been that way for along time now.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 12:37:28 am
content: Quote from: fpga on September 26, 2013, 12:29:15 amThat's odd, their wiki is still up

author: fpga
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 01:37:56 am
content: Quote from: AlfBaz on September 26, 2013, 12:37:28 amOk, I jumped the gun on this one. But much of the material on their wiki is becoming dated. When I asked an Altium FAE about it, he said that they will be doing away with it.They used to have PDFs, but they stopped updating them when they released version 10, and now they can no longer be found on their web site. They also had a nice tutorial on the 2009 version, which they have since removed.As for the videos -- I do find them entertaining during a coffee break. But good luck actually learning from them -- they just fly through a scripted, edited demo without much explaining. It's better than nothing, but a nicely written manual would be very useful.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 01:45:51 am
content: Quote from: fpga on September 26, 2013, 12:22:25 amCurrent support for flex circuits is pretty abysmal. The 3D folding bollocks might be useful but I just hope it is backed up by proper support to create the complex and mixed stackups available with flex and flex rigid boards.And yes I agree that there is plenty of other stuff that needs fixing and improving.It looks like the 'no more versions, new content continuously streamed to subscribers from the cloud' idea lasted about 2 minutes.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 01:57:45 am
content: Well I guess they had a change of management, so changes in direction were always on the cards.I am assuming this is the first major release under the new management.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 02:00:30 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on September 26, 2013, 01:45:51 amThat's "The Altium Way"Remember the Summer/Winter naming fiasco, or the "we are never going back to high priced tools", or "Turning the world electronics design upside down by making the PCB tool optional extra", or *insert Altium-ism here*

author: fpga
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 02:16:38 am
content: Quote from: HackedFridgeMagnet on September 26, 2013, 01:57:45 amLooks like no one is in charge now -- the programmers are free to code whatever they like.Apparently debugging and fixing old code is not fun so they won't do it.

author: fpga
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 02:39:30 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on September 26, 2013, 01:45:51 amActually, they did live up to 'no more versions' for a while -- there was no version 11 or 12 -- the program reported version 10.xxxx.xxxxx. They incremented the version with 13, but that proved to be an unlucky number so now they are jumping to version 14.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 05:03:21 am
content: Quote from: fpga on September 26, 2013, 02:16:38 amWell, there is probably little adult supervision in the Ukraine programming centre.Have just completed a 13min rant video, uploading soon...

author: IanJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 06:09:49 am
content: Code:if (AD14hobbyist_cost <= $500 && AD14hobbyist_limitations == reasonable) {hitbuynowbutton = 1;} else {stickingwitheaglehobbyist = 1;}Ian.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 06:37:25 am
content: Quote from: IanJ on September 26, 2013, 06:09:49 amThat's my video in a nutshell.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 08:22:12 am
content: Didn't know about that, have only read Hackers. Will add to amazon list.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 01:38:15 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus on September 26, 2013, 01:45:51 amAnd that is exactly what you get in 14.You can create so called zones.Here is zome one, 6 layer : r rigid with inner two flex , zone 2 is dual sided flex, zone 3 is is 8 layer : 4 rigid, 4 flex, zone 4 is such and such.For a pure flex zone you can give it bend radius and bend angle so the placement checker knows what how the boards will be positioned after bending so it can look for parts collision. If zone 3 is 90 degrees from zone 1 it can verify that a component from zone 3 will not touch a part in zone 1.The layer stack editor defines stackups per zone. So you can go totally crazy.You can also define resistive layers instead of copper. In flex boards you can use a carbon foil to make embedded resistors. The schematic has a special symbol where you can feed the foil parameter and altium will create the correct value on the flex for you.This 3d viewer is not a gimmick because it actually performs the design rule check for parts placement in the 3d space.This is only one of the mayor new things in 14.There is a lot more new pcb and sch features. Like i said they are refocusing on the core of the system:pcb and sch.Another thing that is happening is that they are reworking the base platform internally. They are abandoning the Borland compiler. Altium is written in delphi. Borland has let that die. Actually borland is dead as well...A whole bunch of the code has been remade in C#. Revision 15 , which is slated february, march will most likely be a native 64 bit program. They were stuck with 32 bit because of the borland compiler. Borland didn't have a working. 64 bit compiler until 2 years ago and then borland went bankrupt so the damn thing is flaky.Other new features : lenthg matchin has gotten an update with more capabilites. Diff pairs has a mayor overhaul. There is automatick neck-down capability and many more things.As for the field solver : Ad14 has an interconnect with both hyperlinx and cst. Those are the well known tools for that. One click pushes the design into hyperlinx or cst. I dont think altium will create their own. It is a very complex piece of software to make(the field solver) and there are two big boys around that are well known and respected. Very difficult to break into the market and the audience is small. Out of all the altium users maybe a few use field solvers.A forum is really unpredictable. I posted this video i shot a pcb west yesterday to show a new capability and it unleashed a barrage about shortcomings of the tool, problems, and the endless freeloader / pirate vs willing to pay debate.They are going after the Eagle users. Will it be free ? Will it be paid? I don't know, they wouldn't say. The answer was : wait for press release. But it was confirmed they are going after the eagle users. So we'll see. Anything beyond that is pure speculation.Ah well.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 02:44:36 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 26, 2013, 01:38:15 pmIn that case, as I said, if they don't have a free version, they will fail to gain anywhere near the traction they are expecting. And Altium will not displace Eagle as the defacto tool in any market space they currently hold.A free version (done right) will ensure that Eagle is buried within 6 months, maybe a year. Because Altium is simply a far far superior and more capable program (even if crippled).My fear is that they won't have a free version (marketing people don't understand the power of free), or if they do, will then price their entry level version in the 4 digit range thinking that is competitive with eagle top end pricing, and have nothing in-between. It will of course be at least a paid version, it's just a matter of how much, and what it will offer for the price.

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 03:11:27 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 25, 2013, 08:08:20 pmYes but can it do interactive routing as well as pads can ??No it still can't even if you have the fastest PC on earthAltium needs to focus on the fundamentals instead of the gimmicks and bloatware that makes it run like a slug even on a fast PC.

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 03:43:07 pm
content: thats what i call interactive routingbtw looking forward for a reasonable priced tool without the loads of stuff which i will never use

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2013, 03:43:21 pm
content: Quote from: snoopy on September 26, 2013, 03:11:27 pmit can do all that is shown in that video apart from the cutting of traces as you go through ( why would you want that anyway ? cutting 30 traces with 1 is opposite world logic)it makes room for via's, it will push via's, it dynamically pushes routes and all the other stuff that is shown. has been able to do that for years. nothing new.i'm doing a 25cm x 48cm board right now with over 1500 components, fully loaded with step models. i use a simple quad core machine , win7 32 bit with 4 gig of ram. i do have a serious workstation graphics card. altium doesn't slow down at all , even when i'm pushing 50 traces to get one inbetween.

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 01:13:00 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 26, 2013, 03:43:21 pmyes sure it will push traces but as soon as you have to push vias as well it gets bogged down even on a fast machine. I tried it on one of their own example files and it was having a lot of trouble. It just seems to get bogged down in the computational aspect of it all. Also if you move a component or say rotate a transistor for example etc Altium won't even rejoin the tracks up for you nicely like pads does. These fundamental things are more important than a nice fancy 3D gimmicky solid modeling package. I get the impression that Altium has compromised a lot of what power users take for granted in other packages for the sake of introducing gimmicky things that are not a high priority in a pcb package.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 01:52:21 am
content: Quote from: snoopy on September 27, 2013, 01:13:00 ami do this very frequently , even when i am routing busses in multi-route mode. Doesn't slow down a bit. What version are you on ? I am 13.2.5. how long ago did tyou try this ? 2 years ago ?[quote[Also if you move a component or say rotate a transistor for example etc Altium won't even rejoin the tracks up for you nicely like pads does. that it will not do. that is true.As for 3d being a gimmick: I am doing a system with 9 boards. There is mezzanine boards, a backplane, they have to fit i a rack , line up. power transitors bolted on heatsinks forming a tunnel between boards. i love the 3d. I got step models of all parts and can work out the fine details without having to measure or calculate a single thing. it all falls into place and i know it will work first time right. i have metal brackets that need to be made to hold boards together. I simply draw those on a mechanical layer in Altium. when i move a screw hole, the pad in the board moves with it. When done i save the mechanical layer as DXF and send it to the flowjet. Bracket fits first time right with no effort on my part. i'd be pulling my hair out if id had to calculate all that crap by hand and redo it every time i move something.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 02:24:07 am
content: To take on Eagle it needs to have a free entry-level SKU that competes with the free version of Eagle feature-by-feature. They also need to have a midrange SKU in the $50 to $250 range for the hobby segment, perhaps limiting to 4 or 6 layers and a restricted board size (but still big enough to do an oversized Arduino shield form factor). It would make sense to offer a "semi-pro" SKU that has fewer restrictions for folks who don't quite need a $5,000 package but need more than the typical hobbyist.Also, and many of you will disagree vehemently, but to compete with Eagle they will probably need to have an OS X version too.

author: fpga
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 05:12:34 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 26, 2013, 01:38:15 pmSorry to have derailed your post. I have great respect for your and Dave's contributions and if there is something that gets you guys excited, then it must be a really good.I just hope that the fancy, sexy 3D semirigid board and MCAD features didn't hinder their ability to address long standing issues with their core PCB design tool.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 05:19:26 am
content: Quote from: MacAttak on September 27, 2013, 02:24:07 amI wonder what the stats would be on technically minded people with a propensity to design PCBs and what OS they use, or possibly which OS they would use if they had the freedom of using any tool on any OS. I would of thought more people would prefer linux

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 05:52:20 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 27, 2013, 01:52:21 amBig fizz !! most people just want to do one board and get that right with minimal headaches. Altium needs to go back to first base and get the fundamentals right. Like Dave said, Altium wasted 10 years on fpga integration when it should have been making a first class pcb package that works better than anything else irrespective of price.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 06:16:18 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on September 27, 2013, 05:49:05 amSorry Wilfred but those percentages are a little confusingAccording to his wiki piecehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems7.26% use OS X and only 1.52% use LinuxMy bet would be that the large portion of Linux users are technical people and a large portion of OSX crowd would be fashion conscious

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 02:57:37 pm
content: Even Apple designs their circuit boards on Pc running windows...

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 06:41:19 pm
content: I'll point out that things are changing very quickly in the software landscape. Windows 8 has proven to be DOA. Windows 7 is decent, but in reality the majority of the Windows ecosystem is scattered among Win7 and XP holdouts. Furthermore, Microsoft is now calling itself a "devices and services" company instead of a "software" company. The desktop PC has been on the decline for years, nothing new or shocking about that, and those users have gone to laptops (I'm only talking about technically proficient users here, the kinds who would be likely to have EE as a hobby). In the world of mainstream high-end laptops, nobody carries the same reputation for reliability, usability and performance as Apple has enjoyed with their MacBook Pro line. As MANY people in the business software development world will tell you, the very best Windows machines are MacBook Pro's.I work for a company that specializes in Microsoft Windows software development. We have very successful training and consulting practices built up around the Microsoft ecosystem of products. One of the founders even has an office on the Microsoft Redmond campus and has been deeply involved with the CLR team since its inception (as well as other major teams). If anyone wants Windows to succeed in the marketplace, it would be us. But among our top consultants and trainers, around 70% are now using MBP laptops (we are allowed to choose our own hardware every three years), and at least 25% are running OS X full-time out of preference. Yes, we still have Windows available via BootCamp/Parallels, but we prefer to only use Windows when absolutely necessary. And among our clients we have noticed exactly the same trends.In the "professional EE" world, sure I'll believe it that Windows is King. Most people who call themselves "pro" will be OK with using a slightly outdated operating system version, since they are also more likely to be using custom-built systems or very high-end hardware components which might not be as stable on the cutting edge OS. They also don't usually care about things like touch-screen UI or even care about the portability of a laptop. They may not even understand why anyone else would want a laptop when a higher-power desktop could be bought for less money. And for those folks, they would probably balk at using Eagle or KiCad or something else - any "serious pro" would be using Altium or something even more expensive.But the conversation is about the hobbyist now. And the hobbyist is going to be more likely to prefer a laptop. Even myself - I use a laptop but in a desktop environment - it stays closed with external monitors / keyboard / mouse attached about 95% of the time. Hobbyists are more likely to dootherthings with their workstations -not just PCB CAD. And we are also more likely to be using something other than Windows.If an entry-level version of Altium is available but only for Windows then I will consider it - but it would need to show a significant value proposition when compared to the tools that do run on OS X before I would give it a fair shot. Not just equal to (in price and features), butbetterthan something like Eagle. To people who don't want to run the software on Windows, support for other platforms is a high-priority feature that is already supported in other competing products. You can't win converts by offering less features than what they already have for a price that is higher than they already pay (free or cheap).

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 27, 2013, 06:51:26 pm
content: Altium doesn't like laptops. Period.I have DXP on my Thinkpad x230 and it is barely usable. 1366x768 is not even enough to show some of the pulldown menus.Many dialog boxes are bigger than this.Free_electron keeps on harping about this, because he's right. Trying to crossprobe between 10 schematics/pcb is completely insane on 1 monitor.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 28, 2013, 08:39:39 pm
content: Having a laptop does not mean you cannot have more than one monitor. Case in point:

author: fpga
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2013, 08:13:22 pm
content: Altium does work fine on laptops, you just need a modern laptop with a dedicated GPU and good resolution, at least HD+ (1600x900) or ideally FHD (1920x1080). Forget about CPU integrated graphics and HD (1366x768) resolution -- it will still run but you will be wasting time.I find it silly to see so many comments about running Altium on Linux, wine, Mac OS, etc. A seat of Altium Designer currently costs about $8000 plus $1750/yr maintenance. Price of a new windows PC is insignificant compared to the price of buying and staying current with Altium Designer. In fact, you could buy a very nice notebook PC for less than the price of the annual maintenance and dedicate that to running Altium Designer under windows while you use another PC running Linux or get a Mac for your other use.I believe that the days of Windows are numbered with possibly Linux taking over one day. As such, it is prudent any software vendor to make themselves independent of Microsoft technology. How to best accomplish that is not obvious. One nice, OS agnostic, platform I've seen is QT. Native C++ apps written using QT GUI and API can easily target Windows, MAC, and Linux equally well from the same code. I would avoid managed languages such as C# or Java since large apps tend to run slow and not be too reliable from what I've seen.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2013, 08:42:58 pm
content: Quote from: fpga on September 29, 2013, 08:13:22 pmNot only that, but it works fairly well on virtualbox. As in windows guest on linux host. Of course this doesn't get around the windows license issue. It's more of a what is your prefered OS with your favorite tools on it thing. Altium project files on a virtualbox share which is on NFS4, and you're good to go.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 29, 2013, 09:14:07 pm
content: Quote from: fpga on September 29, 2013, 08:13:22 pmBecause this is in the context of the upcoming Altium product that is supposed to target the hobbyist / OSH market (directly competing with Eagle). Those people are not going to pay for the full featureset of AD. They also aren't going to be interested in buying a new PC.Your perspective makes sense for the professional engineer, but not for the weekend warrior.

author: fpga
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2013, 09:44:33 pm
content: Quote from: MacAttak on September 29, 2013, 09:14:07 pmActually there is another post for that. This post is for the next release of Altium Designer, the full professional product.I strongly believe that the low end version should be derived from the same code as the full professional version, only with feature, function, and size limits. Creating an entirely different application would defeat the intended purpose.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 29, 2013, 09:59:01 pm
content: Quote from: fpga on September 29, 2013, 09:44:33 pmYes. Anything else is just a stupid idea, as I said in the video, as their investor presentation wording seems to imply that.But I wouldn't put it past Altium!

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 12:03:08 am
content: Quote from: MacAttak on September 29, 2013, 09:14:07 pmThat weekend warrior can just dual boot, so no need to buy a new PC.

author: TerminalJack505
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 12:50:52 am
content: Quote from: fpga on September 29, 2013, 08:13:22 pmI was disappointed to hear they were rewriting the code in C#. These days C# is the Visual Basic of programming languages--everybody and their brother knows the language but very few are actually proficient C# developers.It reminds of a place were I once worked. They decided to use VB to produce their product. The reason being is that they could get "anyone off the street to fill the jobs." That turned out to be the whole problem, however. You don't want justanyonedeveloping commercial software.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 12:58:53 am
content: i think chances of a linux port are zilch.the entire graphics system of altium is directx shader 10.x based... both in 2d and 3d.how are you going to port that ?

author: TerminalJack505
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 01:13:55 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 30, 2013, 12:58:53 amIf they wanted to make it portable then they could use either NVidia's Cg language or OpenGL's shader language--GLSL. But I'm guessing they don't care about portability.Cg is actually pretty much the same as HLSL (DirectX's shading language.) NVidia originally proposed Cg as the shading language for OpenGL. They didn't use it for OpenGL but when Microsoft went looking for a shading language for DirectX they worked with NVidia and used a version of Cg as their shading language.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 02:55:33 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 30, 2013, 12:58:53 amI recall that it was DX 9.0c. That's not so much of a problem, but the fact that they use shader level 3 makes things tricky. Mmmh, come to think of it ... do you know if the C# based rewrite is going to go the directx route again, or use opengl?

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 04:11:43 am
content: Personally, I would be happy to see them re-package Protel 99SE and ship that. It keeps the (private) shareholders happy because it is an old product that was amortised a long time ago, and it is the de-facto standard. I suspect it is what half of China and India uses anyway, so there's a possibility that if the price is reasonable then some places will go legit.My fear is that they will convert the code to Java and deliver it online. Or perhaps even buy out one of the current crop of Kick-started online EDA tool companies.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 04:25:20 am
content: QuoteSorry can't let people spout such rubbish. I would say C# is one of the more popular languages in the world.C# is very very similar to VB.net true, but vastly different to the old VB.C#, with the managed code, garbage collection and the virtual machine it doesn't run well on a small processor.But I find C# is a very very productive language to write in. You can concentrate on your algorithm or business workflow rather than finding bugs due to things such as casting errors or buffer overruns.I think Altium will improve with the move to C#, and maybe 12 months after the initial change I think the bug count will drop to record lows.I guess they are compiling to native, because otherwise it's too easy to reverse engineer. Does anyone know?

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 05:29:46 am
content: Like you say C# is great for banging stuff together and keeping things in order.It completely sucks at running quickly (Ive done algos that were 20 times slower vs. unmanaged C++)They would absolutely have to compile native or the speed loss from the JIT would be laughable. Plus obfuscated or not, it's all there to see

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 06:58:49 am
content: Quote from: HackedFridgeMagnet on September 30, 2013, 04:25:20 amI have since been informed that is not the case, they are not porting the code to C#. They are simply using some C# where it makes sense. Because Altium Designer has so much stuff from so many places, not all of it is in the same language.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 09:10:48 am
content: C# for scripting would make sense.

author: ElektroQuark
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 12:44:03 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on September 30, 2013, 06:58:49 amAny clue about the forcoming versions?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 01:03:52 pm
content: Quote from: EdoNork on September 30, 2013, 12:44:03 pmNo news yet...And I do wonder if any senior people at Altium have seen the video and comments.I know it's gone around a bit, but not sure how high up.Perhaps some people might like to remind them how important they think this ishttp://www.altium.com/en/altium/altium-leadership/executive-teamemail:FirstName.LastName@altium.com

author: TerminalJack505
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2013, 02:12:17 pm
content: Quote from: HackedFridgeMagnet on September 30, 2013, 04:25:20 amI guess I didn't make my point very well. I wasn't putting C# down. I've done my time as a C# developer. It's a decent enough language.What I was trying to point out is that a lot of peoplethinkthey are C# programmers and a company can find C# programmers easy enoughbuta lot of those programmers are just hacks. They don't invest the time necessary to become an expert in the language--and this is extremely important for producing commercial-quality code.Managed languages such as C# let a programmer hobble along with junk code unlike languages such as C or C++.My experience has been that people that don't want to truly invest the time necessary to become experts in the 'hard' languages gravitate to languages such as C#. So you get a situation where the labor pool for C# programmers is polluted with a larger percentage of hacks then the 'hard' languages.Anyway, my original concern was apparently misplaced since we've learned from Dave that it isn't the case they they are porting the code to C#.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 01, 2013, 04:34:37 am
content: You could make the same argument aboutanyprogramming language though. Same goes with the performance arguments. A good developer can get good results out of ANY modern language just as well as a junior developer (or one who doesn't give a crap) can make something dog slow and unreliable.Also, C# would be a terrible choice for scripting. You want a dynamic language for that - of which there are many. Python, Lua, Javascript, etc. C# would be good for a 3rd-party "add-on" API, but I'm not sure that is in the vision Altium has.I would say though that it is important that they move their product away from the Delphi platform. Talent is extremely rare in that platform, and getting more rare every year. It's no wonder the product has trouble with defect rates - they probably can't staff their dev teams. In that regard it wouldn't be a terrible move to transition to C#. There are a TON of C# developers out there. Yes, many of them are horrible (I have a career made out of cleaning up their messes). But there is always a percentage that are brilliant. The larger the talent pool, the easier it is to find and hire those few.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 01, 2013, 04:48:11 am
content: Quote from: TerminalJack505 on September 30, 2013, 02:12:17 pmThey are not attracted to the difficulty of the language or platform. They are attracted to the availability of jobs. These are the same swarms of people who called themselves "web masters" in the late '90s, or "web developers" in the '00s. Many shouldn't be in the industry at all, but a paycheck is a paycheck and many corporate IT hiring managers don't even know how to screen the bad ones out - so they get hired anyways and proliferate.Give it time, the swarm will move on (already has actually). "Web 2.0" is a siren's call for them, in all of its PHP/Ruby/HTML5/JavaScript glory.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2013, 01:36:54 pm
content: Quote from: MacAttak on October 01, 2013, 04:34:37 amAnd where will they find the staff that know Delphiand'other language' to port 20? 30? 40? million lines of code?They took a hatchet to the company and staff and moved to China. Likely to avoid going bust. I have no idea who is writing code for them now, they are probably drawing on the large cheap and chinese labour force which doesn't inspire much confidence, however, they can probably afford a lot of them and to train them.The only way I see them moving the core from Delphi is if they are forced to by Embarcadero being unable to supply a usable development environment. It will be telling if/when they manage to produce a 64 bit version which would have to be built with newer Embarcadero tools.

author: _Sin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2013, 10:59:13 am
content: IMNSHO a lot of people spend a lot of effort learning a programming language, when they should be concentrating on the programming itself.A good programmer with a small amount of experience should run rings around a poor (or even average) programmer with an encyclopedic knowledge, no matter what language we're talking about.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 03, 2013, 04:38:57 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on October 01, 2013, 01:36:54 pmThat's the easy part. At least 95% of competent devs who were at one time doing Delphi are these days working in some other language. And in the case of Delphi, around 4 out of 5 defectors went to C#. The other 1 in 5 went to Java.I too was once a Delphi dev. And not a bad one either. It was a great platform for its heyday. But the writing was on the wall by about 2001. Just in time for the launch of .net 1.0 in 2003.There are only two types of people still working in Delphi - the ones who are incapable or unwilling to pick up a new skill, and those who are just milking decades-old customers who are too risk-averse to transition away from a dead platform and so they are willing to pay exorbitant fees to Delphi specialists who are willing to do the work.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 03, 2013, 06:20:48 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on October 01, 2013, 01:36:54 pmI don't know an exact figure, but it's in the millions, purely because of all the companies and stuff they have bought over the years and integrated into the package.QuoteNot really, they didn't have to do that to avoid trouble, they could have jut sacked half the company anyway to improve the bottom line.The China move was the latest in a very long line of batshit crazy company changes in direction, made on a whim.They (or at least the one in charge) really did think China was the future, blah blah blah.Last time they thought and did the same thing, moving to silicon valley, only to return to Australia a year or two later when it didn't work out.Wouldn't surprise me if they move back again. They still have that huge new building in Belrose that holds 400+ that is sitting there holding maybe half a dozen tops.QuoteThat was the dream, however from what I hear it didn't work out. They found that whilst you can get good programming talent in China:a) They don't work cheapandb) If you can afford them, they don't stay longSo they have ended up hiring a large bunch of people in the Ukraine, and I believe a bulk of the core programming is done there.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 03, 2013, 05:40:54 pm
content: In software development, yes there is some serious talent in China. There are a few problems frequently experienced by western companies who try to offshore there (or who try to open up dev campuses there)...Sorry, these are broad generalizations I know, and there are always (many) exceptions. We end up doing work with quite a few organizations that have partial or complete offshore development centers. In general though when it comes to Chinese-based software development centers...Most devs are trained to obey managerial instructions without question. If you are lucky and management has a good vision, then that can be a good thing. But more often the management is just as clueless as anywhere else and the result is a flock of dev lemmings walking dutifully off a cliff. And nobody asks questions. It's as though questioning a superior were taboo.Similarly, most devs are unwilling to accept that they have failed or made a mistake. It simply does not compute for them - there is no place in their own view of themself to be wrong, ever. The Chinese are bad about this. The Japanese are insane about it. I watched an unfortunate Japanese guy feint and careen off the edge of the stage at a conference a few years ago because he couldn't accept the fact that his demo wasn't working! And of course you cannot improve if you don't first acknowledge the mistakes.Yes, staffing is absolutely a revolving door. Annual turnover of 50% to 80% is common, and most companies plan for it by simply overstaffing to compensate. It is common for the lead dev/architect to be doing great one week, and then you come in on Monday and they've quit (without notice) and are already working for a different company.Because of the first bullet above, it is also very difficult to provide specifications for these teams. They tend to need everything spelled out for them, otherwise they just won't do it. It could be a glaringly obvious oversight in the spec, but they will simply blindly implement it as stated in the design and leave it to QA/Testing to find it later.Unit testing of code just doesn't happen. Again, why test something if you are infallible in the first place? If you do manage to force them to write unit tests, chances are really good that they will automate the test creation to the point that it is worthless. Tests will end up being a bizarre code example of psychological confirmation bias. Instead of testing important functionality, they will have tests for inconsequential things like property get/set in order to boost the code coverage enough to barely meet the project manager's goal metric.Eastern European devs tend to share a lot of those traits too. The main difference is that they will write unit tests (which you have a hard time reading because they don't believe in KISS), and unlike the Chinese they are quite likely to go "cowboy" and do whatever they want regardless of what management has asked for. And then they will get belligerent about it if confronted.Indian devs are much like the Chinese too, with even more severe turnover. Indian and Chinese dev centers will frequently hire very junior programmers for a pittance, and use them to pad the ranks. They are usually not allowed to work on "critical" tasks at least (unless all of the experienced devs leave).With both Chinese and Eastern European devs, there is a real problem of IP theft. Not so much of an issue with other parts of the world, but in those two areas if your design is valuable then you need to plan for that source code showing up in other products.

author: WhiteWolf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 09:16:26 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on October 03, 2013, 06:20:48 amAs many of the Swedish companies like "Ericsson", has found out that it's not much cheaper in China with the work and instead has moved parts of the production to Estonia and Bulgaria (both in Europe). But there they found out that the workers just won't work as fast or good as in Sweden or even in China >.>

author: WhiteWolf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 09:20:06 am
content: Do any one have some more info about the signal integrity function in coming AD14?And is it true that with AD14 you can import from Eagle? That would be awsome.Or have I missed this information somewhere in the post? :s

author: twistedresistor
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 05:19:37 pm
content: Quote from: WhiteWolf on October 07, 2013, 09:20:06 amYes there will be a built in EAGLE importer. A way to get Eagle to Altium has been around for years but via a ULP into Protel format and then into Altium. But there were several problems with planes and polygons which disappeared. Now there is an in program importer. But don't get your hopes up. I've never had any good experiences with any importers and exporters from one E-cad to an other. I ended up redrawing the stuff, mostly non complicated designs which would cost more time to import than to redraw.I've had a chance to test a beta version of the integrated import wizard and give feedback. It was much more usable (or should i say usable at all) than the old version. But it had it's issues with number formats and everything which was set to "Auto" in EAGLE was set to 4 mm in Altium. That was quite hilarious. So i am a bit reluctant to cheer about this, because it is not worth the hassle to import anything apart from a complex PCB (in my experience so far).

author: santiniuk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2013, 09:56:00 pm
content: Looks like V14 has just been released. Installed fine so now to see what the new features bring.Quite interested in the flex design and eagle import facility.Should be fun at work tomorrow....

author: chris0822
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 22, 2013, 02:16:10 pm
content: QuoteI have been using it for about a day now and haven't run into any issues. Haven't really delved into any of the new features except for the eagle import which didn't work since all my old eagle files are version 5 format. Apparently only the newer version 6 XML files can be imported.

author: enz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2013, 02:49:32 pm
content: Quote from: santiniuk on October 21, 2013, 09:56:00 pmWhere did you get it?My Altium still does not show any available updates.

author: chris0822
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 22, 2013, 03:17:23 pm
content: QuoteI downloaded the installer from Altium's download page.http://www.altium.com/en/products/downloadsIt does a separate installation alongside your already installed version.

author: enz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2013, 03:32:20 pm
content: Thanks, got it.It seems that the separate install is the only way the provide (at least at the moment), as they did with the change from V12 to V13.But somehow i expected at least a hint in AD13 to the new available version.

author: santiniuk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2013, 11:08:18 pm
content: Well so much for my plans. No time today really to play....I did try the eagle import facility. At first glance that looks superb. It let me also convert some good eagle libraries into altium parts. Impressed.

author: grimmjaw
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2013, 08:42:51 am
content: I have AD13 installed and 1 year subscribtion.Do I need to pay for the upgrade to AD14?

author: chris0822
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 23, 2013, 12:44:11 pm
content: QuoteYou should be able to download the AD14 installer use your existing license file if you still have a current subscription. I had to reactivate through the account interface in Altium, but it still worked fine.QuoteWhat version of Eagle are your files? I should see if I can upgrade my Eagle v5 files with the free version of eagle to import into Altium. There are some libraries I have that would be useful to import.

author: santiniuk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2013, 01:08:08 pm
content: I think the Altium importer is looking for V6 eagle files. It mentions that the free version of Eagle V6 can be used to save any Eagle 5 files back out as V6. I've tried that and it works fine.The importer then kicks out the .sch, .pcb and and integrated library.Hoping to give the flexible PCB a run out later.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2013, 01:18:12 pm
content: so, they are luring eagle users into altium world? how ironic, i'm still waiting the "hobbiest entry level" edition.

author: grimmjaw
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2013, 02:53:31 pm
content: Thanks chris0822822 .

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2013, 03:59:48 pm
content: up and running here. works fine.i asked the question on the demo day yesterday . It is confirmed they will release a scaled down version specifically targeting the eagle users.As to what will be stripped out : they would not tell. Target is early next year. And that's all they would disclose so far.during the presentation they multiple times stated that altium is back at its core, and has been for the last 9 months : PCB and schematic. other areas will still see development but the key focus is on PCb and schematic .

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2013, 04:56:59 pm
content: wonder what will be in it actually. it would be good if up 6 layers for some more demaning stuffs and diff pairs etc for higher speed stuffs, footprint generators

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2013, 08:45:09 pm
content: I wonder what all the hullabaloo is about regarding that flex pcb stuff. It seems they are touting this as "Oh lookey here, you must have this cool feature!". Is this the replacement of "must have everything FPGA!" ==> "must have flex!" or something? From various remarks out there on the internet (so it must be true!) I would think they would do better by putting more effort into better signal integrity tools as opposed to making flex thingies.Or maybe I am just crazy and flex thingies really are important in their chosen market segment. More important than signal integrity tool apparently. Am I missing something, or is this just another installment of Rational Behaviour vs The Marketing Department?

author: tinhead
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2013, 08:46:24 am
content: is it only me or it takes really that long to open DXP->Preferences page in AD14?It takes 15sec. on my computer, no matter if i'm logged in/not logged in to Altium, with inet/no inet, with fw and av/no fw and av.

author: enz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2013, 03:33:16 pm
content: Quote from: tinhead on October 24, 2013, 08:46:24 amIt works for me. Opens nearly immediately.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2013, 04:50:38 pm
content: I have up to $499 waitingif they release a decent version.

author: reagle
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 26, 2013, 05:01:06 pm
content: Same here- currently "living" in Altium at work, but using DipTrace for my own designs. I'd love to only use one tool, but I need an assurance that my access to tools is not dependent on my employer. So a lower cost hobbyist seat for a home use would be awesome

author: HWgeek
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2013, 03:03:23 pm
content: Same here, living through the current employers Altium licensing. We actually had to recently convert some old eagle sch/pcb project. Not having used Eagle before, I found it to be...mmm... painful.I would have to have at least 4 layer functionality for my designs, a 6/8 would be ideal and I too would ante up around $500 for 8layer functionality./net rumorsHeck if they brought back the deal that I heard of back when, for $2-3K you got it all, I might find a way to pony up the funds not be crippled. But $5k and not have DDR2 matched length routing through resistors doesn't cut the mustard./net rumors off

author: maxseeley
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 23, 2013, 12:46:53 am
content: Quote from: mrflibble on October 23, 2013, 08:45:09 pmRigid-flex support was the most requested new feature. Supporting multiple stackups in a single PCB project is a very useful feature and was a pain to setup manually. Usually involved creating a base stackup and then creating a drawing at the end of the project that outlined the different areas of the board.A lot of designs are moving to rigid-flex - just crack open your cell phone if you want proof.

author: maxseeley
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 23, 2013, 01:11:39 am
content: Quote from: fpga on September 26, 2013, 12:22:25 amThis post has multiple inaccuracies:1.) Since the departure of their old CEO there has been a marked improvement in addressing issues with the core product. Yes, the introduce new features, but these are features that have been requested by their users. Support for rigid-flex was one of the most requested new features.2.) The have made improvements to their high-speed capabilities in 14, but still have some work to do.3.) I would agree that their signal integrity tool is a joke and in my opinion should be eliminated from the package. There is no such thing as a simple signal integrity tool even if it is 2D. Leave this task to a signal integrity tool.4.) The Vaults - these are not in China. They are hosted locally on servers that you as the user setup. All hosting function for Altium in the USA are run on servers provided by Amazon based in the USA. But again, you host your vault. The vaults have had their problems and the roll-out was botched, but they are a very promising technology and something that Altium needs to implement. Managing released documents and creating project snap-shots when these documents are released is very helpful.5.) Rendering a PCB in 3D is incredibly useful. Try integrating a PCB into a very tight mechanical package with out this. In addition, viewing the PCB in 3D can help catch errors that you miss when viewing the PCB in 2D.6.) FPGA tools - except for some of the functions that relate to routing a PCB, the FPGA tool-suite should be eliminated from Altium. That being said, I would not agree with some of your assessment. Altium utilizes current vendor provided tools for a lot of the back-end functionality of the FPGA tools.7.) I have used the Supplier Links in Altium for a long time and have never once had a issue with a incorrect link. You set the links, so if they are wrong that is your fault.8.) The vault based components are not automatically generated. There is a team at Altium that creates all the design content. The content is accurate and is very good. I have used it extensively and only once encountered an error. I notified Altium and it was fixed within hours. The error was a incorrect pin assignment.9.) Only 1% of their customers use Rigid-flex??? Open your cell phone, Ipod, computer and tell me if you find rigid-flex PCB's.10.) How would you use a FPGA constraint file for creating a symbol? A schematic symbol? This doesn't even make sense - please explain?

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2013, 01:47:17 am
content: Quote from: maxseeley on November 23, 2013, 01:11:39 amHow many seats of Altium do you think there are designing cell phones and Ipods? Making a million boards or one board it is still only one design. I would guess more like 10% of their customers do 10% of their designs on flex/rigid which makes 1% of designs.I welcome the new ability to do complex layer stacks, it was a lacking area but I doubt it was the most requested new feature.

author: maxseeley
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 23, 2013, 04:40:24 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on November 23, 2013, 01:47:17 amPlease see attached. It had the second most votes for features requested by registered altium users. And if 10% of customers do Rigid-flex 10% of the time, that still translates to 10% of their customers needing this feature. I would SPECULATE this percentage is closer to 25% and growing.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2013, 05:17:53 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on November 23, 2013, 01:47:17 amYou would be amazed on what gets designed on altium... And there is plenty of flex in it...

author: reagle
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 03, 2013, 02:59:18 am
content: Is anybody seeing more than the usual share of crashes (aka "please wait while I draw progress bar thing") with V14? It appears every time a new Altium release comes out, you need to wait till they fix a few bugs before using it. I tried switching to 14, lasted a day and went back to 13. Luckily files are still compatible between them..

author: maxseeley
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 03, 2013, 06:59:40 am
content: Altium 14 has been very stable for me. In the past, crashes in Altium seem to be more prevalent when using files and libraries created in the previous version. Libraries can also get corrupted which can cause major issues. I started a new job around the time 14 came out so all my 14 files were created in 14. This might be one of the reasons it is stable.Is there a common thread between your crashes?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 03, 2013, 07:45:29 am
content: Quote from: maxseeley on November 23, 2013, 04:40:24 amThese types of polls on the Altium forum are always skewed, due to the nature of the people who frequent the forum. The majority would be professional PCB designers who use the tool almost full time, and likely a companies dedicated PCB designer. That means that it's more likely these users are going to want a variety of advanced features that the average user doesn't much care much for or can get around because it's just a one-off project or something.I would not complain about Altium's decision to add flex support though, as physical manufacturing features like this are important in a PCB tool.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2013, 11:02:08 am
content: Ive noticed 14 is a bigger memory hog than 13. Ive had a few crashes , mainly out of memory type. Then again... My pcbdoc files are like 100 meg ...I need to move to 64 bit os or turn on the 3 gig boundary.I started doing my first flex in 14 ( ive done flex before , what i mean is : i started using the flex capability in 14. )Really cool.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2013, 12:03:14 pm
content: Altium have just announced"Team Configuration Center centralizes and deploys Altium Designer settings and preferences, and ensures a design team are all working from a standard set of document templates and output job formats." and "Altium Vault Server 1.2".Neither of which I have any interest in. They also mentioned AD 14.1 in passing which hopefully consists of more than just added support for the above.Not having anything 'flex' to do at the moment I decided the other possible benefits of 14.0 were not worth the risk and haven't yet installed it to do any real work.

author: maxseeley
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 03, 2013, 09:23:25 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus on December 03, 2013, 12:03:14 pmWhere did you get this info - can't find the announcement anywhere? The download links for the vaults are not updated to 1.2

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2013, 09:29:55 pm
content: Quote from: maxseeley on December 03, 2013, 09:23:25 pmemail from Altium. Announced != released.No availability date was given, sorry if I should have made that clear.

author: reagle
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 11, 2013, 02:46:46 am
content: Just installed 14.1. Release notes mention lotsa bug fixes and crashes. We shall see, but so far (one day of running) it's been much more stable than 14.0.This is on a 64 bit machine with 16G of RAM

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2013, 02:52:39 am
content: been running it since yesterday. it is more stable

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2013, 04:23:05 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on September 30, 2013, 01:03:52 pmI just had a "conversation" with a EU Altium representative - they sent out "special christmas" offers - but the price was not in my league - so I asked about the "Altium Lite"- and he said and I quote directly... "We may one day have a limited version, but forget that one, will only be a bit better than Eagle." bummer - they have not watched Dave's videos....

author: Vasi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2014, 03:17:04 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on December 29, 2013, 04:23:05 amThat means, they will never offer something free like Eagle. The phrase is a prove that they watched Dave's videos. So guys, back to whatever we use for PCB design. For hobby, DipTrace is still the best option (it can use all KiCAD 3D components).

author: DerekG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2014, 06:58:18 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on December 29, 2013, 04:23:05 amSo, Altium pulls the wool over the eyes of its shareholders once again!

author: elektrinis
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2014, 09:02:36 am
content: What a nice coincidence. Just started a design with flex PCB and saw that AD14 is available and has a new feature for flex PCB. Usually I do this kind of work in SolidWorks and did not actually *need* the feature for my simple project, but decided to try it out. And what do you know...Bugs bugs bugs... My whole PCB is flex without "rigid" areas and that prevented it from bending without any warning, simply ignored the bend line and did not do anything. So I have found a workaround - created an identical layer stack copy and set it to "fixed 3D". Now bending line shows actual bend width, however... When switched to 3D, all I get is garbage. Well OK, maybe there is an issue with my video card or drivers or config or whatever... But I am tied to this video card and driver version, because it is required for SolidWorks to run smooth.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 06, 2014, 10:14:42 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on December 29, 2013, 04:23:05 amThey most certainly have watched my video. They are just too *insert your favorite word here* to comprehend the opportunity available to them.

author: IanJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 06, 2014, 12:47:18 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 06, 2014, 10:14:42 amI gave up waiting on Altium and just upgraded my Eagle license.Yup, how hard can it be to take Altium source code, knock off a few features/strip it down a bit/Limit it somehow...........and rebadge it the 'lite' version and watch the money roll in......................tw@ts!Ian.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 06, 2014, 01:58:28 pm
content: Quote from: IanJ on April 06, 2014, 12:47:18 pmIt's not hard at all, unless they are stupid enough to try and re-write it somehow...

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2014, 05:32:21 pm
content: Quote from: elektrinis on April 06, 2014, 09:02:36 amyour board outline has an open contour. that is what is causing the artifact you are seeing.i've done multiple flex projects so far. any time i had this problem it was an open contour or a wrongly defined bend radius.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2014, 05:40:49 pm
content: Funny, before AD14 you had a closed polygon outline and that's that.I've noticed a few other packages have that, you can draw a free form outline, but you manually have to make it closed (hopefully it at least checks for you).Tim

author: jayk
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2014, 11:41:18 pm
content: Along the lines of others in this thread... recently talked to a sales rep for Altium (not Altium employee) and he said he'd heard nothing about any 'lite' version of the product. I mentioned it would be nice to have a schematic + PCB product only and he seemed to think that's where most of the development effort has been going anyway (as opposed to FPGA and simulation).On a similar note, I just saw that Altium will be increasing the price to US $9245 (which I think includes one year of maintenance... they call it 'subscription'). Can't find the current price on their website, so not sure how much of an increase this is.

author: theatrus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2014, 11:47:09 pm
content: Quote from: jayk on April 11, 2014, 11:41:18 pmSounds like they are just bundling the mandatory $1750USD first year subscription into the price.

author: arhi
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 07:39:28 am
content: there was altium presentation here few weeks ago and from talking to altium trainer and altium salesman- altium want to offer "crippled" version but attm they still do not know how it will look like and how much it will cost- they expect huge "umpf" from the vault- they have number of ppl adding components to the vault- there is some "voting" system on altium cloud where customers vote for features and bugs and the priority of the features and bugs is determined from there only so what's first on the list is being worked on. this system is invisible to "non registered users" so I was not able to look at it, someone could check and report back- 14.0 is out with huge number of bugs and they know about it, the flex features are very very buggy and they know about it but decision was to better push out unfinished feature and then fix it with patches then not to push it out at all. 14.2.0 solves most of the known bugs, still some bugs exist but afaik "nothing serious"not related to the this presentation but maybe interesting to the conversation about availability (I'm not suggesting anyone use illegal version of Altium)- until few days ago latest illegal version available was 14.1.5.30772- since few days ago 14.2.4 is available- compared with 13.x that comes with libraries, 14.x only comes with some fpga libs and few basic libs and that's it, not a single op-amp in all libraries that come with 14.x for exampleif ($altium_noncommercial_price <=500$) & ($yearly_vault_components_subscription <=50$) & ($upgrade_to_minor_version = 0) & ($upgrade_to_major_version <=50$) & ($limitation_layers >= 2) & ($limitation_size >= A4) {$get_altium=1; $switch_to_altium=1;} else { $invest_in_kicad=1; $work_in_kicad=1; $work_in_eagle=1;}I personally don't care about commercial licence, IMO $5k is ok for commercial licence or $50k or $500k .. whoever is using it commercially have brain to calculate what's good for him..

author: n3wbie
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 01:37:44 pm
content: Quote from: arhi on April 21, 2014, 07:39:28 amSo what you're saying is that having the libraries in the cloud (meaning you have to have a valid subscription and license to access them) will help prevent piracy?That's actually a great idea!