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From: meric@portia.Stanford.EDU (meric ozcan)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re:Need a good PC board layout system for PCs
Message-ID: <1990Jul6.165902.15507@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 6 Jul 90 16:59:02 GMT
Sender: meric@portia.Stanford.EDU (meric ozcan)
Distribution: usa
Organization: AIR, Stanford University
Lines: 34


In article <9353@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu> you write:
........
>We've had recommendations re Pads and Tango; Hiwire is cheaper and seems OK, 
>but nobody we know has it. Anyone have comments?
>
>John Purbrick
>jpexg@ai.mit.edu

Well I have used Hiwire sometime ago so I can say a few words about it.
It could not be done any worse. First of all they have a tiny manual which
is useless. The English is pretty bad, maybe I should say wording is bad.
The program itself is horrible too! For example, When you scroll the screen,
it is updated in steps; causes eye strain. They say so and so many libraries
of devices bla bla.. in their ads, well I saw those libraries, it could not be
done any worse. You can find for example all kinds of TTL gates, LS, S, ALS..
The very same chip but with different labels. This is confusing, what I mean is
They list 7400, 74ALS00, 74S00, 74LS00, .... and so on separately. There is no
need to do that, since schematic of the chip does not change just one 7400 for 
the above example would be enough, and I can change the label if I want to.
So Their libraries are very limited. The access to the libraries is horrible,
When you load a library say CMOS library, you see the first page and device
names are listed and you have two options either to continue to see other
pages or return to your drawing. This is incredible, I lost half of my hair!!
In order to find something in the last page of a library you have to go through
every single page of that library and you can not go backwards !!! If you miss
something you have to make another trip(s) through the library. I did not like
the menu and the access to different functions.....
Well I can go on and on. These are my personal opinions, someone may like 
Hiwire but I certainly would not recommend it to anyone. Only good thing about
this program is that you can get back your money in 30 days.

Meric Ozcan
meric@portia.stanford.edu