Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Board Master, anyone?
Message-ID: <13257@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 17 Jul 90 20:45:56 GMT
References: <4914@uafhp.uark.edu> <826.269edadd@desire.wright.edu> <31730@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 36

In article <31730@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes:

>If you want to do "more or less" professional layouts, get the PRO-NET and
>PRO-BOARD products for the Amiga.  PRO-NET does schematic capture, etc. and
>PRO-BOARD does the layouts.  PRO-NET/-BOARD is a useable product, but still
>not as sophisticated as some of the products I've seen on "IBM-PC" machines.

I would agree with that.  I have used both PRO-NET and PRO-BOARD, and found
them acceptible, though not fantastic.  PRO-NET is on a par with some of the
PC-based programs in the same price range, though you can certainly get much
better PC-based program with additional money.  The main advantage of PRO-NET
over the majority of the PC-based network editors is that it can use as much
memory as you can put in your Amiga, where many of the PC-based programs
only work with 640K of memory.  You're still pretty limited as to the size
of an individual sheet, however, so you're going to get a little annoyed with
this tool if you're trying to draw A3000 motherboards or something like that
with it.  Ironically, the machines we did the A3000 motherboard schematics
with, a network of Apollo 3000s (68020 machines) running Mentor Graphics' 
NetEd software, are noticably slower than an A2500/30 or A3000.  Which goes
to show you just how the software can often be the factor that decides your
hardware, if you have real work to do.  As for PRO-BOARD, it's certainly 
adequate for simple PCBs, something less than or equal to a 4 layer PCB with
standard traces (one trace between pins), no inner-layer traces, and standard
0.100 grid parts.  You can actually set up pads for surface mount parts or
others that aren't on-grid, at least to a degree, but you have to enter the
numbers by hand, rather than graphically.  TINAR, though I did write up 
reviews of both PRO-NET and PRO-BOARD a year or two ago in the now-defunct
Amiga Sentry magazine.

>Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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	"I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit" -REM