Hi Richard,

I learned on OrCAD SDT, on a 286 machine that was "state of the art," (No snickers please, it was an IBM PS2 Model 50). I've actually "drawn" component symbols with a text editor. (Do you remember drawing the bit maps line by line with '#'s and '.'s?)

And I remember exporting to TANGO PCB to edit my PWB layout. I tried using that fancy-shmancy newfangled autorouter. It would do about 90% - 95% of the work, in about 15 to 30 minutes if memory serves. Then it would quit.

The problem was alway that the last 5% - 10% took hours to do by hand. It was actually faster to do it all by hand, right from scratch.

Then I bought my Protel 99SE. I do not recommend any of the high-dollar packages to or for anyone. Nonetheless, the first board I did with it was a redo of one I had done by hand. It took me between 4 and 6 hours over two days to do by hand. It took Protel 99SE about 1 minute and 45 seconds to complete. Yep. 100% complete. I'm not saying that it could do any board to 100% complete, but it's never failed to do any of mine.

The moral of the story is that I understand your affinity for the old school programs. I really do. And I share your disdain for much of this "latest and greatest" stuff. I've already decided that when the day comes that I am forced to accept Vista, when the day comes that Bill Gates tells me that I have no choice but to upgrade to VISTA, I will upgrade to Linux instead. Yes. I really do understand.

That said, trust me when I tell you that you couldn't pay me to do a board with the old software again. You simply don't have enough money. It doesn't matter how much money you have, because there isn't that much money.

Joe