EEVblog

[@CookingWithCows]

"Do you have a hard dongle? - I said 'no'." .. This blocked the "Spread all" function.

[@EEVblog]

I'll pay that.

[@linuxthemoon]

EDIT: google fuckup!

[@daviddanaci]

1 USD is around 115 JPY, so it is $17 k. Unless this is some kind of "Canadian Pesos" joke.

[@Gizmo42Rodeo]

According to Oanda just now 2,000,000 JPY is 22,993.50 AUD

[@linuxthemoon]

Ah my mistake, I typed 2.000,000 by accident! Holy crap that's expensive...

[@BoomBrush]

Dave: IF you type into google directly "2000000 yen in aud" it will directly tell you.

[@crimsun7186]

Which is what Dave is using on the video.

[@CookingWithCows]

maybe the price on the website was based on the exchange rate in 1998 :P no idea how it was back then

[@linuxthemoon]

EDIT: whoops, it's expensive as fuck

[@Gizmo42Rodeo]

2,000,000 JPY = 22,993.50 AUD

[@briandecker8403]

lol -not sure you know your numbers...

[@OneBiOzZ]

Next up, dave reviews protel for dos

[@marvin19966]

Alyx BioHaz would actually appreciate that

[@funkyironman69]

I think I have that on an old i486 system

[@cherryguerrero1311]

jjensen2492

[@PeterBrand96]

I like its old school gui, none of that ribbon rubbish.

[@toxanbi]

+10²³

[@Eo_Tunun]

4:40 "Do you have a hard dongle?" …what do they care? These bastards are getting a bit private, aren't they?

[@bobbjorkner7140]

"the possibility of CSiEDA is infinity"

[@vk3hau]

I get the feeling yanks won't get what rooting means..... if not, think sex. Replace the word "rooting" with "F***ing" and a "ute" is what yanks call trucks. So "Kevin Bloody Wilson" to Yank song conversions would be " F***ing in the back of the Truck" ...

[@PixelmechanicYYZ]

vk3hau Aussies also love a particular clothing store here in Canada called "Roots". Kind of outdoorsy-ish place but their sweatshirts and hoodies all say ROOTS prominently across the front :)

[@TKomoski]

Borland C++

[@landspide]

For sure... might be C++ Builder...

[@TKomoski]

What gives it away is the buttons Borland used.

[@landspide]

T Komoski yep thinking the same :) There was an OCX directory too, filled with ActiveX goodness (likely for scripting)

[@pldaniels]

It always stumped me why Borland created such toyish looking widget decorations like that, especially on the back of how strong their line up was prior (Borland Pascal / C / C++ in text mode with TurboVision was very nice ). When I saw Delphi I lost my appetite for it, which was a shame as the RAD system was... rad ;)

[@TKomoski]

Paul Daniels I remember RAD back then that brings me back, I used Borland before Microsoft killed it. Borland had that trademark look that made it stand out from other products. Mind you there was not much back then in the early 90's. I did too change to Microsoft IDE environment because Windows API was just taking off and support for Borland was waynin.

[@nicwilson89]

WinPCB sounds familiar...from a long, long time ago

[@vencibushy]

You have to admit. It does look very professional.

[@MatthewSuffidy]

Rutans are also an alien race in Doctor Who, who are the enemies of the Sontarans. They appeared in Horror of Fang Rock.

[@TheChipmunk2008]

Yes those buttons look very Delphi-ish...

[@WestCoastMole]

I can believe 17 Grand for this package in 1995. It probably sold big among major manufacturers and Design Houses in its day establishing a position of dominance in that market. Japanese culture being what it there is little if any desire to reach out and even sample foreign products. So Mystery EDA can still demand, and receive, the same price for its product in the Japanese Market today.

[@RandyLott]

It looks somewhat similar to Cadence Allegro. Super expensive and clunky. Altium is so much faster to use, in my opinion.

[@philbx1]

Sad state of downgrading I think. Used to be shaggin wagons, now rootin utes?

[@tHaH4x0r]

I thought Cadstar and cs 5000 (both by Zuken) are the defecto standard in EDA packages in Japan.

[@Hexureus]

Hi Dave. Just a tip, Try opening the .pcp you have with a text editor, usually it will show funny characters but at the beginning of the file there usually are perceptible names of what could the pcb tool used to create it

[@garethlock4870]

In regards to the .PCB file you're trying to open. Try ExpressPCB this saves and loads these files, and in all likelihood was what was used to create them. Alternately you can try robot room copper connection, which can read ExpressPCB files, but can't save them. However it doesn't lock you into one manufacturer.

[@vehasmaa]

lol i use Sprint-Layout, german made small pcd program. Not super rich in features but mostly good enough for small projects..

[@bonzaihb3432]

Same here ;) but v6 seems to have some pretty f**ked up bugs (like "self turning" pads that flip around by themselves or parts getting caught to foreign ratlines when rotating them over another part and stuff like that) - just yesterday I shot my latest board without noticing beforehand. Really annoying...

[@edgeeffect]

Haven't heard any Kevin Bloody Wilson for years. I used to develop in Delphi and just before you said it, I was thinking that looks A LOT like Delphi.

[@TheEXTRAtesco]

The slowness on rendering could be cause by desktop compositioning, perhaps try to change it in the shortcut properties.

[@TroutButter]

ROOTIN IN THE BACK OF THE UTE!!!! LOL

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

I think you will have to get the USB Dongle for this package as you will need it to get full use off the EDA, There seems to be a non dongle version of Linux Mint 17.3 (Rosa) 64bit called gEDA might actually getting Linux Mint and getting this.

[@ophello]

If anyone complains about the intro image or wants to complain that it "isn't real" please run headlong into a wall at full speed first. That will help you think more clearly than you were when you first concluded it was fake. Thanks. Signed: everyone who understands astronomy, physics, photography, reality, logic, science in general.

[@sparkplug1018]

Are people really going on that that image is fake? Seriously if people are they need to go read a bit about the orbit of the satellite that imaged it.

[@ophello]

You're exactly the kind of moron I was talking about.

[@sparkplug1018]

ophello Who is that comment directed towards? I completely agree its 100% legit and understand its because of the orbit the satellite is in that allowed it to take that image in the first place. If it was the person above me, my apologies.

[@johndrachenberg2254]

I'm actually very interested in finding the original image. Do you know when it was taken, or by what satellite?

[@sparkplug1018]

***** The image was taken by the DSCOVR satellite, from a distance of I believe 1 million miles. If you go to the Wikipedia page for the DSCOVR satellite, theres an animated version of that image there.

[@Bushougoma]

14:18 Man what a dated design a 27512 (NMOS) UV EPROM guess the CMOS version 27C512 was too expensive :-).

[@MacoveiVlad]

I also associated those buttons with Delphi for some reason but it appears it is actually Borland C++. VB had normal looking buttons.

[@teemoinvietnam1356]

The VBasic folder is for macros, i guess. It also says so on the website, iirc.

[@shana_dmr]

Japanese software that has demo PCB with text in Korean (near the measurements). Brilliant:D

[@hmpeter]

When companies are trapped with decades worth of work and libraries in your obscure cad package, you can charge them insane amounts of money it seems. Same thing with Cadstar, for example. The middle versions cost the same as Altium, but is way less capable. 3d view sucks and is 5k extra. Full package is like 50k and still sucks. I cannot imagine them getting much new customers. But some companies have invested a lot and still spend incredible amounts of money to keep in running. ^^

[@ernestuz]

Apart of some minor annoyances (every program has them), it seems to be quite a decent EDA package, I don't care the old fashioned look. But the prices are crazy, you can get altium for about $5K. Probably it's some kind of tailor made software, maybe developed for one of the Japanese biggies, offered now to a bigger audience. I'd bet a beer that some of the features weren't present in any other package at the time.

[@lucidnonsense942]

"My computer is no slouch," shows 4GB, windows vista in sys info... Is that just the age of software showing, or are you overdue for an upgrade?

[@EEVblog]

It's not detecting right.

[@pldaniels]

That feels like something I can add to my excuse cards along with "solar flares" and "alternative-energy electrons"

[@AverageJoe2020]

And cold electricity?

[@sparkplug1018]

Pretty sure he's on at least Win 7 (still old I know) and I know that system has more then 4GB of ram in it. He did a whole video building it. Trust me I've seen systems report and detect things wrong and it has you chasing your ass for a while sometimes.

[@Psychlist1972]

Might be a 32 bit app and from before Windows 7.

[@ChipGuy]

I wonder how an american company made that decision: "Let's get that super expensive EDA system from Japan that looks ancient. Well, I bet they use that EDA system for quite some time and back when they introduced it the circumstances were totally different to what they are now.

[@txtrader512]

"The goodness can be actually felt if it uses it." - that 100% sells it for me.

[@LoriH2O]

Hey, that's my desktop background too! :D

[@Dreamagine1]

So they're still selling 10 year old software for like $17.5k USD?

[@raindogred]

couple a beers and a vegemite sandwich....maaate. can't get that song out of my head now

[@Rcvliegen]

A *.PCB can be a DesignSpark file. Nice hobby design tool without any restrictions.

[@bbreeuwer4577]

The refresh/sluggishness reminds me of KiCad, which I used to run at my work for a while on a pretty beefy machine. (even with the latest build). The price is insane indeed.

[@claaaaams]

Just wondering what your PC specs are. Love the channel. Thanks for the content!

[@JerryWalker001]

Very similar to Easypc which is 50 times cheaper and draws without flickering.

[@movax20h]

Looks like fully features package. The price is rather strange, but otherwise I kind of like all the quirks. Like rounded traces or tear drops, are all really nice. They are useful and if you do not want them, you can easily not use them. Nothing to laugh about for professional suite of tools. Even the 3D viewers is good one. The performance of the drawing could be improved, but it is quiet ok even for big boards, no issues.

[@BlankBrain]

The two million yen includes the factory to manufacture the boards.

[@thegioiaion2646]

Your lab table at the end of the video, where can I get that online?

[@TheChipmunk2008]

Yay for Kevin Bloody Wilson!

[@DavidLeeMenefee]

Darn it! I only have $15,000.00 US to spend. I guess that leaves me out...thumbs up...PEACE

[@HomelessTechnology]

I went and see Kevin Bloody Wilson live a couple of months ago.

[@EEVblog]

Crikey, he's still touring?

[@HomelessTechnology]

EEVblog yeah it was his final final farewell tour was really good had his daughter at the start too. Was in Chatham in Kent, UK.

[@flapjackboy]

Yep, he's touring with his daughter, Jenny Talia. Been to see them live a few times and got some of their albums signed by them both.

[@eukat3ch]

Thanks dave. Excellent review. funny that is says Windows vista at 15:02 at the operating system info. Must be the software.

[@darrenjacobson7456]

.net framework 1.1? Holy crap that's old. I'm fairly sure they don't use that at all anymore, but the last time I saw it was version 4.2 I think.

[@KulikSebastian]

awesome CAD! Ill switch to it from Altium...hahahahahahahahaaaa

[@fearlabsaudio7815]

Dave, since you're at it.... Labcenter PROTEUS might be a great one to review!!!!

[@High_Altitude_Observer]

KiCAD is waaay better.

[@philiphoeffer7442]

I wonder if it really is a PCB123 file. If i recall correctly it used a .pcb extension ( ~10 year old memory ).

[@irgski]

Altium Designer 14 "starts" at USD$7,245!!!

[@punker4Real]

Are you running this on windows 95 this oftware reminds me of that

[@stevenbliss3467]

Hey, don't go knocking Delphi :) It's way better than anything else, especially M$ crap. ...and don'y even mention ancient C++

[@alexmackuk]

Lazarus brings all the benefits of Delphi and RAD but for free. You can also cross develop for Linux or even the Raspberry Pi.

[@hgbugalou]

Steven Bliss M$? Are you 16 and time traveling from 1999? . Net may not be your thing but its not crap.

[@bugeats]

What PCB design software represents the current state of the art?

[@priestblood]

you can open pcb files with circuit wizard 1 and 2 which has four programs in it its very good easy to find free full copys

[@dextrodemon]

yeah looks like visual basic 5, or one of the other ones before 6, but the rest of visual studio looked the same anyhow.

[@mattsadventureswithart5764]

Love Kevin Bloody Wilson. Big wave from Scotland :D

[@Grcbyte]

Yes, receive it :)

[@pldaniels]

Nice and costly - mmm... Windows only? It's interesting, when I was going through Uni back in '90->onwards Windows was being widely trashed out as a toy-OS that couldn't run any of this stuff (among a UNIX env); now it seems the tables are turned and things like Linux are having to claw their way back :\ At least things like gerbv, Eagle, KiCAD (?) and OpenBoardView are now there for macOS / Linux :)

[@downtroddendave860]

In the first half of the 90s Windows wasn't even an OS, lol. Windows 95 (the first windows that was an OS, came out in '95), midway through the '90s and DOS sure wasn't seen as a "toy-OS", nor was Windows95. Granted, perhaps the people at your Uni with which you mingled called it a toy-OS, I'm sure people said a lot of things and I remember the DOS vs. Windows conversations taking place LONG before Windows was even an OS (which many laughed at, the conversations, since many of the speakers obviously had no clue... since Windows wasn't even an OS at that point)... I will say that DOS sure didn't/couldn't do the things a *nix OS could do. As far as Linux having to claw anything back... again, Linux didn't come out at all until the early 90s... and had no real following until the mid 90s, about the same time as Windows95... Anyway... I'll presume you meant *nix instead of Linux by name. As far as where *nix ruled the domain... it still does... and it has made headway into eating the desktop market too. Sure, there used to be more companies that used *nix desktops, such as the Spark, but if we want to loosen the terms enough to include offerings from Sun et al, then we should also be including offerings from Apple... since MacOS runs on Darwin... which is a cousin to BSD... and if yuo believe the hype from Apple marketing, MacOS is in many businesses. For whatever it's worth... this is a Linux household... no Windows OS here.

[@pldaniels]

Fear not, I do remember back to the days of pre-Windows Layer on DOS (DickSmith VZ200 and Wizard starter here, never had a CAT though, but got to use MicroBees and the Apple II's ) Linux household here, novels written in LaTeX as a bonus but repairing Windows and macOS systems are the income makers. You're right about Linux not getting real traction until mid 90's. Was '96 before I picked up Slackware. I remember when MS Office came out, and in spite of the great war, WP51 and Lotus123 sadly faded out :( MSOffice was an amazing bit of kit that spearheaded the change on the desktop/home imo. Right, I'm verbally wandering now - will be good to see more commercial EDA stuff appearing in the linux realm, it's also good to see many OpenSource packages picking up their game and realising they have to do more than just a "hack job" at the UI (though I'm still griping at KiCAD and hugging on to my Eagle 7.x ).

[@sternberk]

Hello playing with Japanese software, have you ever tried Cadstar from zuken, I am kind of in front of choosing software for my classes, we used PADS in the past, Eagle last few years, we want to go for something more “adult” I have ended up with last three adepts: PADS from mentor graphics (I don’t like, we had stability issues) Altium (most of companies around are using) Cadstar, nice policy and useable free version for small projects. Or maybe I will stick with eagle, it is just one semester class and I want to focus on PCB design rules and not on teaching software, eagle is extremely ease to learn and to work with. In this time argument for question why we are using this software, I can answer “because you said so” ;) No kidding, but your opinion is more valuable, compared to marketing offices. Thank you, Pavel.

[@enginerdy]

YEESSSSS SPINNING PCB! But if you do that you need to bring back the theme song! :)

[@PilchPlays]

Looks like it was programed with Visual C++ for Windows 98.

[@leppie]

It uses .NET 1.1 as Dave mentioned, maybe some mixed bits

[@Wilksey37]

.pcb is associated with Cadstar amongst some others.

[@Mrflash222006]

Accel or express pcb should be able to open *.pcb files

[@maicod]

Did you have a bad hair day Dave :)

[@WouterWeggelaar]

I'm getting strong protel99 vibes!

[@JohnGotts]

Be careful about complaining about software based upon the widget set. I see hardware people do this quite a bit. Who cares about the widget set if the functionality is there? In the embedded sector, we're still at Windows XP in many cases, special versions of which are supported by Microsoft for another decade. I believe you hardware people still use twenty year old processors when it is expedient. Every module in your car doesn't need to be running a 16 core Intel processor.

[@jeromekerngarcia]

Hoi Dave, this moight be a good place to ask -- "what's a good EDA suite for me to get started with?" - It will need to be affordable, able to handle 4 layers say, and 150 mm by 150 mm. board, arbitrary # of connections" Analog & Digital

[@cycnus]

Maybe give KiCAD a real honest try. If you stick with it, you'll have a powerful EDA, for free, for life. Check out videos from Contextual Electronics. If it's good enough for CERN, it's should be good enough for most of us. Not the flashiest software available but it has no limitations and nearly the features of high-end EDA, and it's continuously improved. If you'd prefer something a bit less clunky and reasonably priced, Diptrace is decent and has lots of parts. Beyond that, I would probably go for Altium's CircuitStudio. It has most of the features of the high-end version but is still kind of affordable (US$995). These days, I wouldn't bother with Eagle, too expensive for 4-layer boards and subscription only, requiring an always-on internet connection. Lots of online EDA tools. Some quite decent and reasonably priced, but again, you are at the mercy of an internet connection and if the company goes bust or changes focus, you're basically screwed. Bottom line is spend time evaluating various packages. Once committed, it's unlikely you'll switch again as they all take time to learn well. If you're strapped for cash or would prefer to spend it on something else than a license, go for KiCAD. It's hard to beat free.

[@Mythricia1988]

I'd vote for DipTrace as well, it's probably the EDA package that most closely follows the "principle of least surprise" out of all the low-mid range pickings. That is to say, if you want to do something in DipTrace, it's usually very self-evident, and you don't have to alt-tab and google "How do I do " every 60 seconds like some other packages. KiCAD is also good in this regard, but I found it harder to understand than DipTrace, personally. Eagle gave me a brain hemorrhage in 5 minutes, I would rather not do electronics than have to use that horrific torture implement.

[@xxwookey]

Right, I'm surprised I had to scroll down so far to fdind someone mentioning KiCAD. Proprietary tools are all very nice (well some of them are), but not being tied in is worth a great deal and KiCAD is pretty good and has some nice interfacing with FreeCAD for 3D manufacture layout. Works on whichever machine you use (linux/windows/mac). Part libraries is the thing that has always held the free tools back, because everyone is still providing footprints and dimensions for proprietary stuff, but this is changing, and in the long term, open formats will win.

[@RobertBardos]

Sweet video very interesting

[@timturner7609]

rofl my ass off. Rootin in the back of the ute was my first thought too

[@TradieTrev]

hahahahaha Kevin bloody wilson is the bomb!

[@punker4Real]

did not get the notification

[@gotj]

Show a little more respect for others' people work, thank you very much.

[@RobTheSquire]

i've got that rootin song.. and the albums and i laugh so hard listening to them.. Can`t Say Cunt In Canada..- Fuck Ya Guts Out.. also my uncle had the t-shirt for that one with me and ewe

[@livingdaystodaze6201]

Err... Weird I got unsubbed and missed #967 thought you had just taken a couple days off.

[@dougmanatt4317]

Yeah, it looks like the borland graphics

[@Diamonddrake]

Dave when you are showing websites on screen capture, can you zoom in on the pages? Ctrl+ in browser, or hold control and scroll wheel up, or menu, zoom. It's incredibly difficult to read the tiny text along with you.

[@TheEasytoker]

Kevin wilson awesome!

[@hub937]

What do you think about Design Spark PCB which is free?

[@marvin19966]

hub93 IT SUCKS MULTIPLE ARSES AVOID AT ALL COSTS KEEP DISTANCE FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY

[@joeambly6807]

marvin fuck oiff

[@hub937]

Thank you very much. I was curious about other people's opinion on it. It seems I'm not alone. ;)

[@marvin19966]

it truly is the most horrible piece of software i've ever used. just try it, you'll see

[@joopterwijn]

Real modern flip phone one main site.....

[@KasunTalwatta]

Those buttons do look like delphi though ..

[@pldaniels]

Was thinking the same ( and I see Dave also felt that ) but the widgets don't seem *quite* right, unless memory is tricking me again.

[@EEVblog]

It's been close to 20 years since I used Delphi!

[@pldaniels]

Maybe it's the difference between earlier and older Delphi releases. I mostly remember Delphi v2~3. Didn't see anything much of it after Borland's marketing department committed harakiri with the name change [ to Inprise ]

[@klh_io]

I was a Delphi developer for quite some time. Can't say if it is in fact Delphi, because everything in there is just standard Windows controls - it may as well be written in C++.

[@shakaibsafvi97]

I'm in love with Altium ! :) I have a question.... someone please tell me how various CAD tools are able to import files from other CAD tools? shouldn't the file format for a specific CAD tool be proprietary information?

[@EEVblog]

With great difficultly, that's how.

[@shakaibsafvi97]

EEVblog : no really Dave... I'd like to know.... is it reverse engineering? or you hire the software dude from the other company?

[@pldaniels]

I'd love access to the BINARY specification for the PADs .pcb file format. I've got the ASCII/plain-text/.asc format in a nice pdf file but the binary one eludes me. Need it to add to my software.

[@EEVblog]

Even proper importers don't magically work. ECAD software and their libraries and idiosyncrasies are a PITA. This is why no one switches CAD software willy-nilly.

[@shakaibsafvi97]

wouldn't there be legal issues in trying to decode 3rd party file formats?

[@wolvenar]

nice

[@simonhopkins3867]

fucking legend; -)

[@bryceschug486]

Sixth?

[@alch3myau]

I dont like it :(

[@watermelon9588]

5

[@DrakkarCalethiel]

10th view! Jokes aside. Guys no matter what I try my ZVS circuit just wont resonate after transport. I've checked all diodes, zeners and mosfets, they are all fine. also the caps are fine. What could be wrong? I've soldered all on a PCB if that matters . I hope someone can help me.

[@khronscave]

KZbin might not be the optimal place to ask for circuit design tips, i think...

[@DrakkarCalethiel]

KhronX I know. Just curious because it bugs me since last Tuesday and I can't find the fault. Maybe it's time to create an account at the eevblog forums.

[@khronscave]

It definitely wouldn't hurt. Either there, and/or on badcaps.net.

[@LasVegasVocalist]

First Comment! LOL

[@davidmaiolo]

Yawwwn. If i don't see a PCB under a microscope and you tweaking your tongue during the episode i find them boring

[@EEVblog]

It's in the title and description, you didn't have to watch a software video

[@davidmaiolo]

Just bustin your chops