NOTE: This forum is NOT affiliated with or endorsed by Altium Limited.

[EEVblog]

As the title says.
Yes, they asked me to put that disclaimer, lest someone is dumb enough to think Altium actually endorse this forum.

[don.r]

Their loss, mate.

[olsenn]

What crawled up Altium's ass and died anyways? Were they a bad company to work for Dave?

[EEVblog]

What crawled up Altium's ass and died anyways? Were they a bad company to work for Dave?

No, they were in fact an excellent company to work for. They just made incredibly stupid decisions on the direction of the company and it's focus.

Dave.

[johndoe1395]

Idiots.

[Mi_ka]

As the title says.
Yes, they asked me to put that disclaimer, lest someone is dumb enough to think Altium actually endorse this forum.

  Obviously the legal brains of the company after being ordered by the executive brains have made one more point in earning their annual bonuses while the real engineering brains guys are being suppressed from noting that "hey, guys in such forums are actually thinking what they are reading". Doh!

[SeanB]

You probably are the best advert for them Dave. You show the product warts and all, and have compared it with the competition many times. They should in fact be thanking you for this. Even if you do wince at the annual payments.

[retrolefty]

They've probably had a look at your live webcam showing your working conditions? 

[David Spicer]

Until about 2010 they were a great company. Helpful, terrific customer support, great Help Desk etc. Then along came Altiumj Designer and it's been downhill ever since. I think that Nexus (their "universal" FPGA suite) was absurdly over ambitious. I seemk to recall Dave saying it nearly sent them under.

Now I get better support from Cadence and Orcad. Orcad is no longer expensive.  About $2K. I still use DXP too.It works flawlessly under Wine,and  now that WIndows wants to be an poor man's inferior Apple (W10) I can't help wondering how much longer it will be usable as a workstation platform. I allready run Designer in a w7 VM.

Altium is now just another bunch of rude bigheads in suits. Try to get a trial version and you'll see what I mean. They have virtually NO interest in selling just one license. I know, I've tried. They want big bucks, yet won't give me a trial. Sure.

[tautech]

Try to get a trial version and you'll see what I mean. They have virtually NO interest in selling just one license. I know, I've tried. They want big bucks, yet won't give me a trial. Sure.

Try a Google search for "Altium cracked free download" and you should get 170K results.

[David Spicer]

Yes, I have done that, but it's not the point. I am showing how little interest they have in one off purchases.
If I sound down on them, it's because I am!

[Macbeth]

Yeah, I've got a "cracked" Altium but really haven't give it much use as what's the point spending all that effort learning it without knowing what its going to cost me without all the shiny suited sleazeball salesmen telling me how great its going to be? They could give a trial version with some help files and leave me to it instead.

I was looking forward to CircuitMaker but the cloud thing was kind of shitty, though could be sorta good in shared designs. Then again, whats wrong with Git?

Now most EE's will know all the shortcuts and how to create components etc automatically. But when I tried it I couldn't even find a simple way of just rotating a component on the schematic? Right click nothing there. I found it more frustrating than old KiCad. I then learned that all the essential keyboard shortcuts had been deliberately left out - no doubt by marketing MBA wankers. I couldn't find any obvious way to create components on the fly either.

I've no idea what it's up to these days.

I tried the old KiCad and utterly hated it. I quite liked the RS DesignSpark but nobody uses it, I then tried the new KiCad and I kind of like it, I think only because I persisted with the old rubbish and so it's a breath of fresh air now... and I know some of its keyboard shortcuts and shift-? is always there... 

What is the "official" EEVBlog freebie CAD package? I know despite Altium insisting Dave DOES NOT ENDORSE ALTIUM IN ANY WAY!! (fucking idiots!!) that Dave still gave them a real fucking chance. But his partner in crime, Chris at the AmpHour is pushing for KiCad.

Is there a schism between Dave & Chris or an official EEVBlog CAD of choice? 

[bjdhjy888]

What crawled up Altium's ass and died anyways? Were they a bad company to work for Dave?

No, they were in fact an excellent company to work for. They just made incredibly stupid decisions on the direction of the company and it's focus.

Dave.

What are the decisions and direction? I wonder. 

[Jackster]

What crawled up Altium's ass and died anyways? Were they a bad company to work for Dave?

No, they were in fact an excellent company to work for. They just made incredibly stupid decisions on the direction of the company and it's focus.

Dave.

What are the decisions and direction? I wonder. 

Money and towards it.