Just wondering what people's views are on them going cross platform to include Linux and Apple Mac? Is it even feasible to do so? Eagle does and dip trace does to an extent using wine...Altium has always been written in Delphi. The software devs can tell you how feasible it would be to do that...
I look forward to viewing my new board in glorious 3D. Oh, after I edit all my library parts to include the 3D data.
No, you don't need to do that, just hit the 3D button and you get your blank board in 3D. That alone is incredibly useful as a visual aid.
Hi GrumpyUnclePete
what you describe was named P-cad 2006 O0
opuss sorry altium have die and put it on the trash after promise to integrate it to altium DXP ..
the fun joke it offer me a discount of 50% for "Upgrade" to altium
that good have paid p-cad 12,000$ and offer to "upgrade" to altium that sell for 5,000
personally i call it paid for downgrade but altium sale rep see it as major upgrade
so now i use zuken but learn curve was very sharp ,
i hope some one made P-Cad 2014 ;-) so easy to use and intuitive and do only PCB noting else
Altium is a serious CAD tool, and if you want to use it, then you will use whatever hardware and O/S it's designed for.
Assuming your library parts have 3D models...
i thought a "serious CAD"s use OpenGL instead of "game oriented" DirectX. i dont know, but from reading internet, Altium is not classified as "high end" CAD. YMMV. :edit: and maybe this is due to the long historic war between MsDX and OGL, Altium has picked there side and forced users to do the same...
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The latest Altium does offer some really valuable stuff over Protel 98 or 99SE, it's well worth getting to learn it.
Which part exactly is the valuable bit? I'm all ears because at present I don't have a choice - I have to use Altium Designer.
I look forward to viewing my new board in glorious 3D. Oh, after I edit all my library parts to include the 3D data.
With regards to going cross-platform, I think that realistically it would be a waste of time and effort for Altium to even try, even if they could do it.
The reason is simple. Altium is a serious CAD tool, and if you want to use it, then you will use whatever hardware and O/S it's designed for. When you spend $5K-$6K on CAD software, it's nothign to dedicate a $1K-$2K machine to run it. This isn't consumer software land. There is a reason why hardly any pro engineering tools work on the Mac
With regards to going cross-platform, I think that realistically it would be a waste of time and effort for Altium to even try, even if they could do it.
Altium is a serious CAD tool, and if you want to use it, then you will use whatever hardware and O/S it's designed for.
When you spend $5K-$6K on CAD software, it's nothing to dedicate a $1K-$2K machine to run it. This isn't consumer software land.
This don't affect me any more because many years ago I decided that I would not develop any more software that was OS locked.
This don't affect me any more because many years ago I decided that I would not develop any more software that was OS locked.then what is the comparable version of Delphi RAD for the not-OS-locked environment? i like the concept of OS-independent development but i cant find any "Window-GUI-control-drop-down" IDE as good as Delphi or even VB6-like environment.
I don't think we are going to see a continued viable MS OS solution for too much longer, their market slid right off the plate. I give it 5 years and only mission critical machines that companies just can't be bothered to deal with changing are going to be running MS.
I have yet to see a company that uses, say, OpenOffice files as standard.
Maybe Altium also listened the "Borland propaganda"
Maybe Altium also listened the "Borland propaganda"
Protel was originally written in Turbo Pascal for DOS, then when they made the bet on Windows, Delphi was the obvious choice, and a perfectly good choice at the time.
Then what do you do when you are locked into a tool like that? It's very hard to make the decision to switch it all to another language when things creep up on you slowly, with Delphi perhaps making promises that didn't eventuate etc, so you keep getting strung along.
I'd necessarily blame Altium for sticking with Delphi.
Seems to me their biggest issue is management .
In the case of Altium it all worked out well as long as Windows stayed the primary OS, and it will continue to work until that magic moment when suddenly the majority of dev tools are on something else and so are the users.