Free Altium is Coming

[timb]

Yeah, I'm interested to see what Apple does with Swift. They're pretty much going to have to fully open it up or let it die and make a deal with the devil and treat C# as a first class language by giving it Cocoa bindings.

Personally, I'm surprised Apple didn't make a deal with MS years ago to sort of combine .NET and Cocoa. It would have made writing Mac/Windows applications a breeze, but more importantly it would have opened up iOS development to every Windows programmer in the world. Something like that had the potential to crush Google and Android.

One set of code would have supported two commercial desktop OS's and two tablet and phone OS's.


Sent from my Smartphone

[timb]

That's fine, myself I'm happy with an OS that supports them all which I paid $139.80 including taxes and I'm using it exclusively for electronics.

Weird, every OS X release for the last 5 years has been free. Why is MS still charging for an operating system upgrade?

This is why over 40% of the Windows install base is still running XP.


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[Iliya]

The reason people keep using XP are probably:

Vista was terrible so that broke the chain for many.
Most computers are still running from the XP days and are fine. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Windows 7 - well, XP seems to be working fine.
Windows 8 - Oh dear 

In the banking sector in the UK all the old mainframes are biting the dust, nobody know Cobol or how the old programs works (All the programmers are long gone) so they can't transfer the data... 

For me I still have to support XP, so I can only ship .NET 4.  This is a pain.

P.S. I believe there is a Cobol.NET 

[Iliya]

The Microsoft APIs of 15 years ago and the Microsoft APIs of today are as different as red and green.

With full respect to you, I don't consider any 15 year old opinion on development to be valid.  SO MUCH has changed.  The .NET APIs aren't perfect, but they are SO FAR beyond what MS had available in 1999.

Honestly.  Do yourself some credit and give .net an honest try. 

Given that this is a Microsoft that open sourced .net, and just released a free version of visual studio specifically for nonprofit stuff, I wouldn't be surprised if a Linux or Mac version of VS is on its way.

Things have changed.

Edit: grammar.

Absolutely:
The code in the old days of C++/MFC is absolutely terrible  to write and fix compared to C#/.NET. 50% + of the advantage of C# is the massive .NET libraries. This greatly improves productivity and maintainability/reliability. Also security is better (no classic buffer overrun).

[ehughes]

From my experience, c# & .net is an extremely productive tool.   I use it to create production test/programming tools.    I have had a line running on .net helping crank out units for 6 years now.  Never any issues.   The IT guys have had no problem maintaining the tools written in .net.   

I have also written some acoustic field solvers ( 4th order PDE's) in .net.  While the performance was about half that of a c implementation,   the code was up and running  very quickly.  It also handles multicore and multi threading very smoothly.   virtually all of the performance issues were due to array bounds checking in a loop.   It made it easier get the code running and throw more cores at the problem.


As for Apple pricing on the os...  Of course the don't charge.   They already got 400% margin on that overpriced hardware that comes in a 4 color double walled box. ?

[timb]

Actually, Apple's laptops are on par, if not cheaper than a comparative quality PC laptop. Hell, they made the MacBook Air their entry level machine starting at $999. That's an ultrabook with an SSD, milled from a solid block of aluminum. It's hard to beat, really.


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[zapta]

Any news regarding Altium Circuit Maker? No much buzz recently.

[nixfu]

Any news regarding Altium Circuit Maker? No much buzz recently.

So much for them telling us "later this(2014)".


I bet we never ever see this thing released. 

[zapta]

Any news regarding Altium Circuit Maker? No much buzz recently.

So much for them telling us "later this(2014)".


I bet we never ever see this thing released.

If so, the concerns expressed in this  thread may have a part in it.

[miguelvp]

They did tell us that we were not chosen for their close beta and the release was planned for January, today is just the 1st. Patience

Well you are soon to be gratified. 

I had this from Daniel Fernsebner.
Director of Global Services & Developer Network

Closed beta has begun with the intent to release the product in January.

Kind regards,
Dan

So the Beta is just December?

[alimirjamali]

Any news regarding Altium Circuit Maker? No much buzz recently.

It appears that Dave and Chris discussed this in the last episode of The Amp Hour podcast. Unfortunately I did not have time to listen to it. I quote the episode notes here:

When Dave finally hires an intern next year, he’ll have to decide which PCB package he’ll purchase/use with them. Altium is planning to release a mid range version called CircuitStudio alongside CircuitMaker.

So far those hobbyists/open source advocates who waited for the so called Circuit Maker were losers and the others who adopted another free package won. Learning curve is time consuming and time is money

In the meantime, KiCad's development team has been highly active, making it more and more reliable. I have heard it is now stable on MacOSX.

[zapta]

In the meantime, KiCad's development team has been highly active, making it more and more reliable. I have heard it is now stable on MacOSX.

Still no binary...  I don't hold my breath anymore.

[Iliya]

In the meantime, KiCad's development team has been highly active, making it more and more reliable. I have heard it is now stable on MacOSX.

Still no binary...  I don't hold my breath anymore.

Ah well. One day... 

Anyway Free AutoTRAX is here, so no need to wait.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/free-unlimited-version-of-autotrax-pcb-design-software

[free_electron]

i'll wait for free altium. judging by the demo layouts on Autotrax website it's pretty crummy >

(couldn't resist)

[pickle9000]

i'll wait for free altium. judging by the demo layouts on Autotrax website it's pretty crummy >

(couldn't resist)

He spent all his time on the software, I gave it a look and it's not bad at all. 

[zapta]

In the meantime, KiCad's development team has been highly active, making it more and more reliable. I have heard it is now stable on MacOSX.

Still no binary...  I don't hold my breath anymore.

Ah well. One day... 

Anyway Free AutoTRAX is here, so no need to wait.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/free-unlimited-version-of-autotrax-pcb-design-software

Doesn't help here, I am a Mac OSX user.  ;-)

Any chance of supporting also Mac OSX?  I think it's an important feature for tools for the OSH community (see Eagle, DipTrace, Kicad (almost)).

[zapta]

i'll wait for free altium. judging by the demo layouts on Autotrax website it's pretty crummy >

(couldn't resist)

That's a one man operation. An amazing achievement IMO.

[DerekG]

Anyway Free AutoTRAX is here, so no need to wait.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/free-unlimited-version-of-autotrax-pcb-design-software

I could not get the above link to work for some reason & so post your first post from that thread below:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/free-unlimited-version-of-autotrax-pcb-design-software/msg591110/#msg591110

[Iliya]

In the meantime, KiCad's development team has been highly active, making it more and more reliable. I have heard it is now stable on MacOSX.

Still no binary...  I don't hold my breath anymore.

Ah well. One day... 

Anyway Free AutoTRAX is here, so no need to wait.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/free-unlimited-version-of-autotrax-pcb-design-software

Doesn't help here, I am a Mac OSX user.  ;-)

Any chance of supporting also Mac OSX?  I think it's an important feature for tools for the OSH community (see Eagle, DipTrace, Kicad (almost)).

This may help... http://kov.com/Support/Apple

[Iliya]

i'll wait for free altium. judging by the demo layouts on Autotrax website it's pretty crummy >

(couldn't resist)

Well, you could always do a project in DEX, email it to me and I'll use that an excellent example of PCB design.

I'll even give you a full license for free if it's any good. That can't be bad! 

We're all looking forward to seeing it. 

If anybody else has an excellent design in DEX that they would like me to feature on my web site with a link/credits to them, then please email me the project (Use the build in problem reporter) and I'll give them a full license for free if it's any good.

[Mechatrommer]

i'll wait for free altium. judging by the demo layouts on Autotrax website it's pretty crummy >
(couldn't resist)

That's a one man operation. An amazing achievement IMO.

amazing indeed, but sadly went the wrong direction, what a waste. have you tried the simple demo pcb editing? a good way to make a spaghetty mess in seconds, no 45 deg trace snap, just arbitrary angles. i tried to advice him to become a millionaire but he didnt listen, he kept firing at people saying his invention works. i dont know today.

[Iliya]

i'll wait for free altium. judging by the demo layouts on Autotrax website it's pretty crummy >
(couldn't resist)

That's a one man operation. An amazing achievement IMO.

amazing indeed, but sadly went the wrong direction, what a waste. have you tried the simple demo pcb editing? a good way to make a spaghetty mess in seconds, no 45 deg trace snap, just arbitrary angles. i tried to advice him to become a millionaire but he didnt listen, he kept firing at people saying his invention works. i dont know today.

I was wondering when you was going to turn up. Anyway, Here goes...

You are so wrong  no 45 deg trace snap!. Have you used AutoTRAX?
View this video to learn about  45 deg trace snap -

[zapta]

This may help... http://kov.com/Support/Apple

Any chance for a single package installer for Mac OSX?  Without having to install other products and OSs.

[free_electron]

i'll wait for free altium. judging by the demo layouts on Autotrax website it's pretty crummy >

(couldn't resist)

Well, you could always do a project in DEX, email it to me and I'll use that an excellent example of PCB design.

I'll even give you a full license for free if it's any good. That can't be bad! 

i'll take you up on that offer. lemme see if i can whip up a board over the weekend. but be prepared for some 'machinegunning' if the software is counterintuitive. if i need to spend more than a few hours finding my way to create symbols, footprints and route it ... the guns will come out .

We're all looking forward to seeing it. 

If anybody else has an excellent design in DEX that they would like me to feature on my web site with a link/credits to them, then please email me the project (Use the build in problem reporter) and I'll give them a full license for free if it's any good.

[zapta]

i'll take you up on that offer. lemme see if i can whip up a board over the weekend. but be prepared for some 'machinegunning' if the software is counterintuitive. if i need to spend more than a few hours finding my way to create symbols, footprints and route it ... the guns will come out .