I'd like to know how and where you end up with BEagle. I object to the way in which they require symbols to be entered. I also dislike their symbol libraries because most of the QFP outlines have too much pad under the component. This interferes with inspection. That means they all have to be reworked.

The tool I use most is OrCAD's old 1992 '386+ DOS tool, which is a gridless autoplacing autorotating pushaside router. They made a set of later versions of the same product, at least the same product name, but replaced it with a lesser tool. That, I fear, is the reason the Cadence had to buy OrCAD, as neither they nor Mentor had a comparable tool, despite their orders-of-magnitude higher prices.

The old DOS-based OrCAD tools don't require a package outline for every component, but, rather bind it to a library outline when the move from schematic to circuit board is made. Of course, parts with different pin assignments have to exist in different versions. Since I use programmable logic quite a bit, I dislike having to use BEagle to create a new schematic symbol, and package, and then bind them together for each application. The XC9572 comes in only so many packages, and having done it once, I should be able to do it again without repeating the housekeeping. In OrCAD I just build the schematic symbol, which is convenient even with programmable devices, because their signal definitions vary, as do the symbol configurations, due to number of inputs, outputs, etc. Before I can netlist the circuit, I have to specify a package outline to be used. That way, I have only to produce the package outline once. If I correct it, the correction is global. If I need to keep it as-is, I put it in its own project-specific libraray.

I'm particularly interested in BEagle's library management. When I became unenamored of it, it used lots of user-provided components, and the libraries were entirely separate. If you didn't know which library contained the part you wanted, it didn't exist, i.e. the software couldn't find it. I'm afraid more and more PCB packages are heading in that direction, due, I suppose, to inefficient database management tools.

Under OrCAD, I simply include every library in the repertoire, and it finds the part if I have it. Of course, I do have to recall what its name is. If I use ALL the libraries, a search for a part can take a long time. Sometimes it's over a millisecond or two. I've never had one take so long that I even noticed. I find this very convenient, which, I guess, is one reason I dislike BEagle as I do.

The other thing is its appearance. I find BEagle schematics ugly and amaterish in their appearance. For that reason, I use the old DOS-based OrCAD tool to draw my schematics and import a netlist (which OrCAD handily exports) into BEagle if I have to use it.

The last version with which I was intimate couldn't maintain signal path lengths. If one has, say, a 150 MHz bus that's being operated on a multilayer board, each track in a group must be limited to the same number of vias and be held within about 1-2 mm of identical track length. It also didn't heed the placement of components in the schematic for ordering on the PCB, so one had to be very careful with how parts were placed. That's not really unusual, but some tools make it easier than others.

I could go on, but if you'd like to keep me updated on your progress with the current version of BEagle, I'd be interested simply because a few of my clients insist on using it, now that they've paid for it.

RE