Author Topic: The Autodesk Eagle edition  (Read 194095 times)

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Offline macegr

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #400 on: February 09, 2017, 08:51:57 am »
I have Sierra as well (always update quickly) but the crashes started with an Eagle upgrade and persisted over several OS upgrades. My Macbook is from 2011 and has an AMD graphics card rather than Nvidia. In any case it's a common enough problem that Eagle support knew about the problem and had a workaround, so the fact that the bug exists is not under debate.
 

Offline rachaelp

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #401 on: February 09, 2017, 09:14:51 am »
I have Sierra as well (always update quickly) but the crashes started with an Eagle upgrade and persisted over several OS upgrades. My Macbook is from 2011 and has an AMD graphics card rather than Nvidia. In any case it's a common enough problem that Eagle support knew about the problem and had a workaround, so the fact that the bug exists is not under debate.

Sorry, if you got the impression I was denying you had a legitimate problem, I was just pointing out that v7 does run fine on OSX for me and a lot of others I have spoken to, as you'd made a statement that implied that it was unreliable on that platform.

I'm wondering if it's people with AMD based mac's that have this issue? Apple haven't use AMD GPU's in their recent Mac lineup so maybe the video driver hasn't been updated in more recent versions of the OS so the problem persists? This is getting a bit off topic for this thread though :) Have you tried the freeware version of v8 to see if the problem still exists there?

I have a weakness for Test Equipment so can often be found having a TEA break (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/)
 

Offline K6TR

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #402 on: February 09, 2017, 12:53:21 pm »
And you don't need to lecture me about Circuit Studio's support and development issues. I've spent plenty of time trying to work through CS's many flaws with my squawk list eventually getting escalated to a VP at Altium with essentially him admitting that the issues I was seeing were a ways off from ever being addressed. There is a problem. They know it. Newark knows it as well.
I'm curious what these problems are specifically. Sounds like they are either so deep in the architecture of the program that the fix would take a prohibitive amount of resources, or that they are intended to not attract too many users from their high-end package. I'm really curious about this, since with Altium Designer I have the impression that the real deal breakers (something that breaks your ability to get a board out) get addressed. They take a bit longer for this than they should, and these problems shouldn't slip through internal testings procedures, but once they know about them they work hard to fix them.

cx have you seen the comparison sheet of what features were cut out of CS that were originally designed in to AD ? 53 of 136 have been removed. Taking a meat ax to a functionally sound program is begging for system problems. I willing to bet there was quite an "intense" discussion within the ranks at Altium about how to approach the genesis of CS. Do we write a whole new program from the ground up or do we chop out Designer the features we don' t those users to have. In hindsight making a new program look and perform like AD is a far easier proposition than cleaning up the mess of a cannibalized program.

Of course there will always be guys like Spokane who will take the family sedan out to the local Test Track to joust with his buddies. When they wind it up to 10 Grand and it throws a rod they scratch their heads and wonder why.  |O
 

Offline cx05

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #403 on: February 09, 2017, 01:58:42 pm »
cx have you seen the comparison sheet of what features were cut out of CS that were originally designed in to AD ? 53 of 136 have been removed. Taking a meat ax to a functionally sound program is begging for system problems. I willing to bet there was quite an "intense" discussion within the ranks at Altium about how to approach the genesis of CS. Do we write a whole new program from the ground up or do we chop out Designer the features we don' t those users to have. In hindsight making a new program look and perform like AD is a far easier proposition than cleaning up the mess of a cannibalized program.
Hard to say whether starting at zero would have been better. It really depends on how modular and well maintained their code base is. However, as CS presumably gets less development resources than AD, it's still asking for trouble either way. What really disappoints me is the GUI choice (I hate it when I can't disable ribbons). But I guess that's another way to prevent existing AD users from migrating to the lower end. Not sure whether I would be happy with CS. I'll keep an eye on it and see whether they fix the bugs in the long run. At least they got the licensing model right.

Of course there will always be guys like Spokane who will take the family sedan out to the local Test Track to joust with his buddies. When they wind it up to 10 Grand and it throws a rod they scratch their heads and wonder why.  |O
I agree that CS is positioned below AD and it's unreasonable to expect it to be able to replace it. However, this should not compromise the stability of the program. But since they are occasionally struggling with stability problems with AD as well, having a second product with (presumably) fewer resources might show the same symptoms, but more pronounced.
 

Offline LabSpokane

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #404 on: February 09, 2017, 05:18:01 pm »
Of course there will always be guys like Spokane who will take the family sedan out to the local Test Track to joust with his buddies. When they wind it up to 10 Grand and it throws a rod they scratch their heads and wonder why.  |O

Rev limiters are for Nancy boy brits.  :box:
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #405 on: February 09, 2017, 06:09:42 pm »
Of course there will always be guys like Spokane who will take the family sedan out to the local Test Track to joust with his buddies. When they wind it up to 10 Grand and it throws a rod they scratch their heads and wonder why.  |O

Rev limiters are for Nancy boy brits.  :box:

Yeah, right! FIA Formula One driver's championships - UK:16, USA:2; adjust for population difference, UK 40: USA 1. Constructors championship's UK: 33, USA: 0.
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 
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Offline XFDDesign

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #406 on: February 09, 2017, 07:06:02 pm »
Yeah, right! FIA Formula One driver's championships - UK:16, USA:2; adjust for population difference, UK 40: USA 1. Constructors championship's UK: 33, USA: 0.

Plus they turn left *and* right, at varying speeds due to a variety of different corner radii.  :-DD
 

Offline jackenhack

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #407 on: February 13, 2017, 11:45:13 pm »
...
Eagle, version 6.6 anyways, is much more stable......never had it crash......ever.
Eagle crashed on me once. But it wasn't fair play, the network drive became unavailable.

5 never crashed for me either, but 7...dang. I actually do have one complaint about Eagle and it's the crashes on OSX on version 7. It will crash over and over while panning or zooming, the official workaround from Eagle support is to resize the window before working. Unfortunately this behavior persisted over a number of minor point revisions without getting fixed, and will not be fixed on the 7.x line.

If you start Eagle 7 and it opens the latest project, just close the project, reopen it and resize windows. No crashes...
« Last Edit: February 13, 2017, 11:46:50 pm by jackenhack »
 

Online EEVblog

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #408 on: February 18, 2017, 10:49:31 pm »
Altium are finally capitalising on the Eagle situation:
http://www.altium.com/eagle-switch/altium-designer/

I advised them to have a 50% off switch to Circuit Studio, but 40% off the full AD is still great, but of course still $5k!
So obviously won't appeal to a majority of users, but a good deal for those who were looking at a more serious higher end tool.
Problem with AD is that you don't get bug fixes without the subscription though, but at least they do have a perpetual license.

« Last Edit: February 19, 2017, 12:09:26 am by EEVblog »
 
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Offline KE5FX

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #409 on: February 19, 2017, 12:06:12 am »
Awesome.  Gun, meet foot.  You two have a lot to talk about over at Autodesk HQ.
 

Online EEVblog

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #410 on: February 19, 2017, 12:10:22 am »
It just occurred to me. If yoou wanted to buy Altium, just buy Eagle first and then pretend to switch  ;)
 

Offline james_s

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #411 on: February 19, 2017, 02:15:57 am »
$5K for Altium is a bargain next to perpetual payments for renting Eagle. It's mature enough that I'd expect most people could get at least 10 years out of it and likely even more. PCB design hasn't really changed a whole lot in the last 10 years.
 

Offline LabSpokane

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #412 on: February 19, 2017, 03:34:20 am »
Altium are finally capitalising on the Eagle situation:
http://www.altium.com/eagle-switch/altium-designer/

I advised them to have a 50% off switch to Circuit Studio, but 40% off the full AD is still great, but of course still $5k!
So obviously won't appeal to a majority of users, but a good deal for those who were looking at a more serious higher end tool.
Problem with AD is that you don't get bug fixes without the subscription though, but at least they do have a perpetual license.



So, it's official.  Altium correctly realizes that Autodesk Eagle is a gun pointed right at their head. Circuit Studio is effectively dead, and the upgrade path is straight to Designer. 
 

Offline MarkS

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #413 on: February 19, 2017, 05:41:55 am »
So, it's official.  Altium correctly realizes that Autodesk Eagle is a gun pointed right at their head. Circuit Studio is effectively dead, and the upgrade path is straight to Designer. 

Who are you? What is wrong with you? Your posts in this thread have been dismissive, defensive, offensive and flat out rude. You've made your position known and it is getting old. You are an Autodesk fanboy and a troll. Go away. Autodesk has a loaded and cocked gun pointed at their own head and Altium is capitalizing on that fact. Good for Altium. If Autodesk has even a few neurons firing in their collective brains, they'll understand the position they are in and listen to the people that made Eagle the success it has been. It is these people that will keep Eagle thriving or kill it. We have a right to be angry with Autodesk and your posts are nothing if not self-serving. Again, who are you? You've acted like you have a personal stake in this. Are you a shill or just a troll?
« Last Edit: February 19, 2017, 06:31:43 am by MarkS »
 

Offline LabSpokane

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #414 on: February 19, 2017, 07:06:10 am »
So, it's official.  Altium correctly realizes that Autodesk Eagle is a gun pointed right at their head. Circuit Studio is effectively dead, and the upgrade path is straight to Designer. 

Who are you? What is wrong with you? Your posts in this thread have been dismissive, defensive, offensive and flat out rude. You've made your position known and it is getting old. You are an Autodesk fanboy and a troll. Go away. Autodesk has a loaded and cocked gun pointed at their own head and Altium is capitalizing on that fact. Good for Altium. If Autodesk has even a few neurons firing in their collective brains, they'll understand the position they are in and listen to the people that made Eagle the success it has been. It is these people that will keep Eagle thriving or kill it. We have a right to be angry with Autodesk and your posts are nothing if not self-serving. Again, who are you? You've acted like you have a personal stake in this. Are you a shill or just a troll?

Wow.  That's a lot of anger there. Good for you. That's why we have the internet: to misinterpret people's motives and write angry things at people we don't know.

The business model of freeware and hobby licenses as the major Eagle user group is the reason CADSoft was sold twice. It was a financial failure. Selling software into the maker market was NOT a success. If you find pointing this fundamental truth out rude, it's your issue.

I have engaged in basic discussion and debate, with the occasional poke when I see you guys go completely over the top with the Autodesk Hate Fest. If that's what this thread really is, just a place to crap on Autodesk, just rename the title and have at it.

Autodesk can drive me crazy. They know how to write some really crash-prone software that also fails to do periodic backups like it was set to do before it crashes. This just happened to me Monday. I'm fairly certain Jorge and co. could hear me swearing three states away. There, I said something bad about Autodesk.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2017, 07:08:01 am by LabSpokane »
 

Offline MarkS

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #415 on: February 19, 2017, 07:21:34 am »
Wow.  That's a lot of anger there. Good for you. That's why we have the internet: to misinterpret people's motives and write angry things at people we don't know.

Eagle is the closest that we have had to a "real" EDA program. Sure, the freeware version was horribly gimped, but the pro version was still within the price range of the average hobbyist, even if it required saving. I could see myself coming up with $1000 or there about. Given that all other professional EDA programs start at around $5000, Eagle, even with it's limitations, was a godsend. What Autodesk has done has restricted Eagle in a manor that has hurt a great many people. $65 a month sounds cheap, but that is in perpetuity and the internet requirement is a no-go. The benefits of Autodesk's pricing model hurts those that made Eagle what it is today. The people that you have been attacking, and if that is not your intent, I couldn't tell, are longtime Eagle users with time and money invested in the program. You seem to be oblivious to that fact. Leave them alone. They have a right to be upset.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #416 on: February 19, 2017, 08:03:52 am »
So, it's official.  Altium correctly realizes that Autodesk Eagle is a gun pointed right at their head. Circuit Studio is effectively dead, and the upgrade path is straight to Designer.

I think you are over-interpreting (mis-interpreting?) Altium's move. CircuitStudio was probably always meant as a vehicle for getting new users on board with the Altium products, with the ultimate goal of getting them to upgrade to Altium Designer if and when their needs grow. Designer must be where Altium earns the serious money, especially from users with support contracts.

Altium now see an opportunity to convert users of larger Eagle licenses straight to Designer, so that's what they try -- why take a detour via the less profitable CircuitStudio?

I expect that CircuitStudio will stay around, as an entry path to Altium's platform, quite independent of this move.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #417 on: February 19, 2017, 08:04:22 am »
At $65 a month you'd spend $5,000 after only about 6 years. I don't see why anyone would pay that much and not even get a perpetual license to show for it. I view Eagle as more or less on par with KiCad. It had a slight edge due to the large hobbyist support base but that's going to dwindle quickly. It has never been in the same class as Altium, OrCad or the other high end products and I don't see it ever breaking into that market.
 

Offline MarkS

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #418 on: February 19, 2017, 08:07:32 am »
I view Eagle as more or less on par with KiCad.

I agree totally. The only thing separating the two, IMO, is KiCAD's fractured library editor. Eagle's tightly integrated library editor was/is a strength of Eagle and KiCAD's developers cannot seem to grasp that fact for some reason.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2017, 08:13:46 am by MarkS »
 

Offline james_s

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #419 on: February 19, 2017, 08:12:38 am »
No software is free of bugs, nor will it ever be. Hopefully they're smart enough to only release a version that is good enough to do what it's supposed to do.

Updates are a relatively recent thing. For the first ~20 years I spent using computers, you bought software that came in a box with disks or CD(s) and that was that, you used it until a new version came out that offered something worth upgrading to. None of this constant updates, permanent-beta crap that fixes one thing and breaks something else.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #420 on: February 19, 2017, 08:32:05 am »
I've been burned so many times by new versions of software that these days I tend to treat it like BIOS updates, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".  Except for security patches I rarely update anything anymore, I got my machines set up just the way I like and I just use them.
 

Online EEVblog

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #421 on: February 19, 2017, 08:55:03 am »
Eagle is the closest that we have had to a "real" EDA program. Sure, the freeware version was horribly gimped, but the pro version was still within the price range of the average hobbyist, even if it required saving. I could see myself coming up with $1000 or there about. Given that all other professional EDA programs start at around $5000

Err, Circuit Studio is under $1000 and is basically Altium Designer in capability but without some of the productivity features.
 

Online EEVblog

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« Last Edit: February 19, 2017, 09:02:16 am by EEVblog »
 
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Offline LabSpokane

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #423 on: February 19, 2017, 06:00:03 pm »
So, it's official.  Altium correctly realizes that Autodesk Eagle is a gun pointed right at their head. Circuit Studio is effectively dead, and the upgrade path is straight to Designer.

I think you are over-interpreting (mis-interpreting?) Altium's move. CircuitStudio was probably always meant as a vehicle for getting new users on board with the Altium products, with the ultimate goal of getting them to upgrade to Altium Designer if and when their needs grow. Designer must be where Altium earns the serious money, especially from users with support contracts.

Altium now see an opportunity to convert users of larger Eagle licenses straight to Designer, so that's what they try -- why take a detour via the less profitable CircuitStudio?

I expect that CircuitStudio will stay around, as an entry path to Altium's platform, quite independent of this move.

I'm saying what I'm saying after speaking directly with Altium about Circuit Studio. Circuit Studio has virtually no user base.  I wasn't given a number, but the gist of it is, CS never took off.  At $1k a copy, it needs a very large user base just to be financially viable. So, if Altium saw CS as having a future, the logical choice would have been to do what Dave suggested and have Eagle users get a cheap upgrade to CS. The fact that Altium did not do this says that they are quite worried that Eagle will become good enough to cannibalize the portion of AD's user base who needs a professional product, but doesn't use many of the highly specialized features.

Although no one here is happy about the fact that Eagle is going to cost more, the huge upshot of all this is: professional-grade eCAD is going to cost less. 
« Last Edit: February 19, 2017, 06:02:12 pm by LabSpokane »
 

Offline KE5FX

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Re: The Autodesk Eagle edition
« Reply #424 on: February 19, 2017, 06:12:58 pm »
Although no one here is happy about the fact that Eagle is going to cost more, the huge upshot of all this is: professional-grade eCAD is going to cost less.

I couldn't care less what EAGLE costs.  It's always paid for itself around here.  The problem is that they will no longer sell me a license at any price.
 
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