Cheap, Cross-Platform Electronic Circuit Simulation Software? 211
dv82 writes "I teach circuits and electronics at the undergraduate level, and have been using the free student demo version of OrCad for schematic capture and simulation because (a) it comes with the textbook and (b) it's powerful enough for the job. Unfortunately OrCad runs only under Windows, and students increasingly are switching to Mac (and some Linux netbooks). Wine and its variants will not run OrCad, and I don't wish to require students to purchase Windows and run with a VM. The only production-quality cross-platform CAD tool I have found so far is McCad, but its demo version is so limited in total allowed nets that it can't even run a basic opamp circuit with a realistic 741 opamp model. gEDA is friendly to everything BUT Windows, and is nowhere near as refined as OrCad. I would like students to be able to run the software on their laptops without a network connection, which eliminates more options. Any suggestions?"
Is a live DVD OK? (Score:4, Interesting)
If booting off a live DVD is OK then you may want to look at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ElectronicLab_Spin [fedoraproject.org] .
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Will that boot an Apple computer?
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You sir, are an idiot, or at least the company you work for is.
The last thing you should care about is what brand of software someone
used to learn engineering. This is tantamount to a building contractor
only hiring framers who use "Stanley model 13 hammers".
You should be trying to determine if a candidate actually knows how to
design and solve problems; not worry about what tools they used.
Of course I realize this is how industry operates. The depths of human
stupidity never cease to amaze and amuse, and sadd
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As a technical person I would rather see people that have 'CAD experience' with a sample of CAD software (even if it's rather unknown) than a guy who just has experience. The first one is going to be able to adapt to whatever program we use, the other one is going to have trouble switching from his favorite software to whatever we use.
I have one such person that has difficulty whenever we upgrade a piece of software so she is still stuck on Thunderbird 1, Firefox 2 and Office 2004. Simply upgrading the Off
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So you have a job requirement that a prospect be stupid enough to run Windows. Please let us know the companies name so that we can avoid buying any stocks or bonds you issue.
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Then the question is, why you prefer OrCad? Vendor lock-in? Monkey see, monkey do? No clue? (Hiring manager != electronics engineer)
I think in those cases one might not want to work for *you*. ^^
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Why was this post modded down? It's very relevant. I don't agree with this hiring criteria but it's a prevalent one. Moderators should only mod down for posts that detract from meaningful debate.
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Maybe part of the problem is the expected length of employment? If you only expect to hire an employee for 3 months, then the couple of days it would take a competent engineer to go from GenericCAD to OrCad might be significant "on paper". It's a tiny percentage when compared with differences in talent from one individual to the next, but it might on the surface appear to be more measurable (tangible) for a manager reviewing dozens or even hundreds of resumes. If you hope to hire an employee for a few ye
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A good rule of thumb when looking for work is to consider how much an employer is investing in their new hires up front. They can invest in the time spent interviewing, time and money for training, equipment, hiring bonus, moving expenses, etc. These days of course almost any job is better than none, but to whatever extent one has choices to make, I think up-front investment is one of the best indicators of a good employer.
(Note that this criteria eliminates all pyramid sales jobs. The pyramid structure
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If booting off a live DVD is OK
Linux netbooks were mentioned, and netbooks don't have optical drives. Have you got it to boot from a USB stick or an SD card?
Cadsoft Eagle (Score:1, Informative)
Eagle is no simulator (Score:3, Informative)
CAD (Score:5, Informative)
For the CAD part, there is the EAGLE Light Edition from CadSoft http://www.cadsoftusa.com/freeware.htm [cadsoftusa.com] It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac.
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KiCAD is even cheaper for the 'real thing' and also cross platform.
I don't know if it integrates with spice or anything for simulations.
Re:CAD (Score:4, Insightful)
I use KiCAD and it works quite well for designing PCBs, though it has some rough edges.
However, the discussion is about circuit simulation in college, which has nothing to do with PCB design. KiCAD doesn't currently integrate with Spice unfortunately, though that would be really nice. I don't actually know of any open-source stuff that does Spice well. The SPICE engines themselves are open-source (such as ng-spice), but they have no front-end at all, so you have to do everything at the command line, which is really rather clunky when you want to, say, look at graphs of simulation results.
When I want to simulate a simple circuit (not often), I start up a Windows computer and run an old version of Pspice (9.something) which is freely downloadable. The state of circuit simulation on Linux is very, very bad right now.
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LTSpice for simulation, Eagle for schematic/PCB design.
In my experience, any tool that does both simulation and schematics is a) crap, or b) really expensive.
LTSpice is free, well supported and actively developed, high quality, and works well under Wine.
Eagle has native versions for Mac/Linux/Windows, has a great educational site license program (reasonable price, no yearly fees, no license server), does schematics+PCB+autorouting, is well supported with its own newsgroups (which are regularly attended by E
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I had good initial success with ltspice under Wine. Not perfect: some dialog boxes don't focus input fields normally (but if you're persistent, you can get it to work).
No problem with the simulations. The command line simulation is more powerful than I at first suspected. I especially appreciated the ability to do multiple plots in parallel. Some basic logic elements were missing (multiple input muxes, IIRC). So there was a startup curve learning how to make my own.
Once annoyance was the plotting setup
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I believe the primary difference in the "core engine" of LTSpice's simulator vs. straight SPICE is that Linear made some tweaks to make it more suitable for simulation of switching power supplies.
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I'm a big fan of FOSS but I hate to admit that best-effort programs like gEDA and KiCad just don't match up to Eagle.
I'm sorry, I completely disagree.
I've used both Eagle and KiCad, as well as PADS. Eagle has a funky interface (but then again, most EDA programs seem to have funky UIs), but it works well. KiCad has slightly funky interface, though I actually found it a little easier than Eagle. But unlike Eagle, KiCad is free. Eagle costs a LOT of money: I'm pretty sure the cheapest license is $1500. Th
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I will have to look at KiCad again (wasn't impressed last time) but I disagree with the Eagle analysis. The freeware license allows for 2-layer 4"x3.2" boards which is definitely enough for a lot of projects.
Even the completely full version for commercial use with no layer or size limitations is $1500 for schematic+PCB+autorouter. That's not the cheapest license, that's the most expensive one!
My university has the completely unlimited professional version site license -- it is NOT limited in board space or
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Just looked at KiCad...it doesn't have an autorouter.
Sorry, it's not even in the same class as Eagle then.
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Exactly: it has a ridiculously small board-area limitation, which makes it completely unusable IMO.
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Yep, there's a whole site at www.kicadlib.org.
I just wish it wasn't such a PITA to make a 3D model in Wings3D. Maybe it's because I've never worked with a 3D modeler before and am out of my element, but while I have no trouble at all making new components and footprints in KiCad, the one time I tried making a 3D model in Wings I was really stumped. Maybe I'll have to try it again sometime when I have some more time and patience to dedicate to it.
I agree about liking KiCad the best of the free alternatives
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They use a 'standard' format rather than the Wings3d format itself. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to use another modeler and export to this format. Perhaps it's wings3d itself that is tripping you up? I remember it was supposed to be ground-changing or something, so it's obviously doing something different.
I think the format Kicad wants is wrml? Can someone confirm that?
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TOPSPICE is $500!!! And only for Windows.
No thanks.
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Netbooks? (Score:1)
Whether running Linux or Windows - aren't you going to run into some serious horsepower issues if you try to accommodate students who own netbooks?
Also, don't forget that Macs can run Windows inside of a VM perfectly well, and Sun's VirtualBox is still free; plus VMware and Parallels offer significant student discounts.
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Re:Netbooks? (Score:5, Informative)
Whether running Linux or Windows - aren't you going to run into some serious horsepower issues if you try to accommodate students who own netbooks?
I don't see why. Most student level electronics simulation just shouldn't be all that CPU intensive. When I was an EE student 10 years ago, people did just fine with 150MHz machines running SPICE.
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I remember running spice simulations on a 286. It ran slow, but it worked. A 486 would have been a dream to have. Really, Spice is not THAT demanding for simple student-style problems in the first couple of circuits classes.
I have even designed two-layer boards using a Pentium-120 laptop with 24MB if RAM (as a student, about ten years ago). It was not the fastest, but it worked fine -- and that was with a 800x600 display. Yes, the requirements for modern programs are more demanding. I would definitely
You think a 286 is old and slow (Score:2)
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I don't see why. Most student level electronics simulation just shouldn't be all that CPU intensive. When I was an EE student 10 years ago, people did just fine with 150MHz machines running SPICE.
I dunno, maybe I'm just not particularly good at using SPICE, but I've run simulations of very simple circuits that took 10-20 hours on GHz+ machines. Maybe there are workarounds (although I looked for a while and didn't find any) but it seems there are some circuits that SPICE is very poor at handling (the circui
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Really? I would think analog simulation would be slower of the two. What makes digital so expensive to simulate?
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Sometimes collaboration on a project is necessary, but Macs won't be able to open MS Office files properly (I haven't tried Office Mac 08 yet, though).
I don't know what you're using for document editing, except maybe iWork, but I've never had a problem opening up Windows-created Office documents on my OSX systems (G4 and Intel-based). I've been using Office 2004 for the Mac with no problems at all. The only thing I've found that sucks in it is not being able to add animation paths in PowerPoint, but that's just a minor issue. I would assume Office 2008 would be at least as good, but then again, it is MS, so that could be a faulty assumption. ;-)
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Partner with IT dept and get it hosted via RDP (Score:4, Interesting)
We had finance apps that students had to use in their coursework. Trying to get them to work on a Win/Linux/Mac system would have been painful and time consuming.
So we created a terminal server environment that let anybody RDP in to use the course apps. That way nobody had to pay for a real version, we paid for the terminal license.
That might work well for you rather than finding an app to support in 3 environments.
Good luck!
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Since when does literacy count for anything? (Score:3, Funny)
I *totally* missed that.
I'll go sit in the corner.
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Even if the lack-of-network-connection weren't an issue, running SPICE simulations is _extremely_ processor intensive. My guess is the students will be running jobs that take 100% CPU for 4-5 hours at a time if they're doing anything non-trivial. Not exactly the kind of load you want to stick on your terminal server system unless you're geared up for it...
JMCAD (Score:2, Informative)
Might not be what you need... (Score:2, Informative)
This might not be anywhere near what you need, but this application definitely helped out my friend in his intro to electronics class
Falstad Circuit Simulator Applet [falstad.com]
Really good on rudimentary stuff, done in Java for cross platform goodness.
LTSpice and SolveElec (Score:5, Informative)
LTSpice is free as in beer and works nicely even with more complicated problems. There is only a windows version available, but Linux support with wine should not be a problem. http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/ [linear.com]
For simple circuits SolveElec runs on windows and mac, has a very nice user interface and is a good tool for teaching. http://www.physicsbox.com/indexsolveelec2en.html [physicsbox.com]
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Seconded, it's ridiculous to even consider any other free SPICEs than LTSpice.
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LTSpice[...]Linux support with wine should not be a problem
Actually, since way back when [google.com], Mike Engelhardt has taken pains to assure the WINE-compatibility of LTspice. (Notice that the capitalization in the name of that app only applies to Linear Technology's name.)
In an odd irony, in its current incarnation, support for Win9x was dropped [google.com] in that "native" Windoze app.
...and if the submitter of the question really wants his kids to produce their own PWBs, KiCAD is the universal app (open source).
Cadsoft's EAG
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DesignWorks (Score:2)
Professionally, I use Capilano's DesignWorks schematic capture on a Mac (they also support Windows). They have demos and some educational deals . (I use MacSpice for analog simulation and Osmond for PCB layout.) HTH.
School Computer Labs (Score:1)
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It's the changing college demographic. First, more non-traditional students that want to be able to work at home, at "work", on their own time, etc.
Second, more demanding traditional students that expect colleges to come with more amenities like better dorm rooms than what used to be the norm, private bathrooms, etc. The ability to work in the dorm room or "plug in" wirelessly anywhere on campus and do their homework is becoming an expectation.
We have computer-aided teaching studios now with no computers in
Paul Falstad's applet (Score:2, Informative)
There is a nice applet at http://www.falstad.com/circuit/ [falstad.com] - it might not be sufficiently sophisticated but it does at least handle op-amps.
Not a fan of (P/NG/LT/Berkeley)SPICE (Score:5, Informative)
I've had to use a handful of circuit simulators, and I've always found SPICE brittle. Perfectly reasonable circuits just refuse to simulate, even when good initial conditions are set. Now it's possible I've been doing something wrong. But on the whole I find SPICE deeply frustrating.
The most robust simulator I've used so far has been a demo version of SiMetrix [simetrix.co.uk]. HSPICE also does a bang-up job... when it doesn't segfault. Unfortunately, HSPICE is very un-free (and buggy-as-hell), and although SiMetrix does have a demo, it's artificially limited in the size of circuits it can simulate.
Thoughts?
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Re:Not a fan of (P/NG/LT/Berkeley)SPICE (Score:5, Informative)
It's quite likely you've been doing something wrong :-) I was at the same place, getting frustrated because perfectly reasonable circuits refuse to simulate. 99.9% of the time it was my fault, and it was a great learning opportunity. "Reasonable circuits" are not necessarily practical circuits. For example, you can put in an ideal switch into SPICE and cause brittleness, because practical circuit voltages and currents don't change instantaneously like ideal switches do. "But wait!", you say, "Inductor voltages can change instantaneously! That's what it says in my textbook!". No, they can't :-) There's a reason SPICE lets you specify an inductor's parasitic parallel capacitance.
Also, another source of brittleness/bugginess is poor third-party circuit models. I've downloaded some MOSFET models that just plain stunk.
BTW, LTSpice is my favorite simulator, hands down.
Re:Not a fan of (P/NG/LT/Berkeley)SPICE (Score:5, Funny)
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What used to cause problems for me were transient simulations of digital circuits. These were built from FETs almost exclusively. No ideal switches or anything nonphysical. The only thing at all dodgy from a numerical-integration point of view would have been the input signals, which were piecewise linear "square waves" with finite-but-small rise and fall times.
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I shrunk my designs down to the criitical paths (~12k transistors), and even providing the proper nodesets/initial conditions HSPICE was unable to converge or segfaulted quikcly. Fortunately, my university has a deal with Cadence through their University Alliance program -- Spectre may not be quite as accurate at HS
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Perfectly reasonable circuits just refuse to simulate, even when good initial conditions are set. Now it's possible I've been doing something wrong.
What's a "reasonable circuit" for you? Most likely you are doing something wrong. ;_;
QUCS (Score:2)
I've never used it on Windows, though I see there's an installer for it. I use qucs on linux quite a lot, though.
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/qucs/index.php?title=Main_Page [sourceforge.net]
LTspice & TINA-spice (Score:2, Informative)
I've mostly used LTspice and it works very well and has a low learning threshold. Of course you can insert spice directives in the schematic to do more advanced func
Use LTSpice (Score:2)
http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/ [linear.com]
It is optimized for analyzing switching power supply circuits so it probably is the fastest spice implementation out there. I have quit using all the other spice based simulators out there in favor of LTSpice. User support can be found on the yahoo group:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LTspice/ [yahoo.com]
Re:Use LTSpice (Score:4, Interesting)
LTSpice is quite good if you want to design power supplies with Linear Technology components. The component library has just about everything Linear makes, and not much else. So you need some additional libraries for other purposes. You'll probably have to put together a model library for your students, from various downloaded models.
I've had fun with LTSpice. As an exercise, I've been designing hardware to run a Model 15 Teletype (1930s technology) from a USB port. The usual power supply for the 60mA current loop required is a 120VDC supply through a 2K 10W resistor, to get enough punch to energize the 4H 55 ohm selector magnet of the Teletype fast enough. Most of the energy is wasted heating up the big resistor. But I've designed something that up-converts 4.5VDC to 120VDC using an IC intended for photoflash applications, charges up a capacitor when the input is low, and when the input transitions to high (MARK), dumps the energy into the magnet. The 120VDC is only needed for the first 1ms or so of each bit time, to push current through the big inductance. A 3.3V linear regulator then provides the sustain current to keep the magnet pulled in after the cap dumps. The whole thing needs 250mA at 4.5V, which can be taken from a USB port. Separately, a small CPU is needed to do the serial port stuff for the signal.
I don't know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
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That was my first thought... a VM for VMware player or VirtualBox would be pretty easy... depending on size constraints could be copied pretty easily as a pre-setup VM.
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It is quite easy and intuitive to use, works much better than gEDA, but needs some getting used to working around it's glitches, specially to discover a few tricks about how to work easily with any external spice subcircuit.
Simulation can be done through berkeley-SPICE, ngspice or GnuCAP.
It's a shame this is the
Oregano - documentation??? (Score:2)
Documentation: We need documentation, tutorials, manuals and much more.
and you see the problem.
While this tool is being written with the best of intentions, it's nowhere near the level of support needed to teach a class. The students will spend as long trying to learn the tool as they will trying to learn the course. Any package used is merely to illustrate and support the course content - not a learning g
Get the real thing. (Score:2)
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As a professional who's used Ansoft Designer, I can't say enough bad things about it. While it may do OK for college level problems, please only allow students to use it after strongly worded warning about just how buggy, incomplete, and poorly engineered the product is. Under no circumstances should students be allowed to walk away with the impression that Designer is a useful tool. My $0.02.
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Designworks (Score:2)
Check out Capilano's Designworks. There is both Mac & Windows (no Linux) versions. I have used several different schematic capture packages, and Designworks is really very good. In all honesty, I have found Orcad to crash way too often. In fact I've had Orcad crash so bad that a reinstall was necessary. Thankfully, this was an older version (11 I think).
Rocky's Boots (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky's_Boots [wikipedia.org]
For pro software, the OS is secondary (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say that it these students are in an engineering or science program, they must know how to use these tools, just like someone in a science/math program must know how to use Mathematica. That said, if the course in question is just a survey course, the specific tools may be less important than the exposure. For this there may be alternatives. For instance, an only breadboard simulator [york.ac.uk] is available. Google circuit simulators and there may be more available. I am not sure what is available for CAD.
Here is another issue. If the class teaches the design techniques and not the application, the maybe students can use whatever they want. What distresses me is that we are no longer teaching the high level concepts, but the mouse based menu selection. Instead of teaching the concept of cut and paste, we are teaching the menu commands. The problem is when the menu changes, the students are SOL. For career training, this is fine, but I think we should be teaching at a higher level for college. For instance, in my college, we were just told to write a program to solve the problem or create a simulation. How we did it using the available tools were up to us.
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I think the poster is trying to find an alternative to the cadence/mentor/synopsys stranglehold. All 3 offer university licenses although they may require an exclusive deal. They also definitely do not provide copies that can run directly on the student machine without getting a license token from a license server. The poster was hoping to get something that could run on student boxes standalone. While my company will provide student keys for the student machine under an educational license, the student sti
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I'll step in as a professional with 10 years at the same company as an engineer. I don't even remember what I used in college. Some of the CAD was done on AIX / Solaris, some on SGI and some spice was done on a VAX. Colleges are there to teach you how to think, not necessarily do, and the best colleges are good at c
I got Tina to run under Wine (Score:2)
At work I use Tina http://www.tina.com/English/tina/ [tina.com] on Linux under Wine. I put a report in the winehq app database about it. The version I have just needs to run in a Wine fixed-size virtual desktop.
Tina is currently my favorite simulation package since the license is quite cheap, it has an integrated schematic editor and is generally fast and easy to use.
I can't say if the latest and greatest version of Tina works with Wine though, since the version I have a license for is a couple of years old now.
Let the students decide (Score:2)
In the course description make a statement to the effect that "this course will require you to acquire a circuit simulation package capable of <insert reasonable specification here > An example of the complexity and functionality required is the following file [take your most complex course material] which your package must be able to handle." Then g
Why are you even using demo versions anyway? (Score:2)
OK, I'm gonna bite as no-one else has so far...
Demo versions of software are just that - meant so you can test out the software to see if it fits your needs. If you're going to be using this software year after year to teach a course at university, you should get a licence, one per user. Obviously, this makes more sense if it's installed on a university machine, in which case what platform they're using is irrelevant anyway. Alternatively, if you really want the students to install it on their own machin
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OK, I'm gonna bite as no-one else has so far...
Demo versions of software are just that - meant so you can test out the software to see if it fits your needs. If you're going to be using this software year after year to teach a course at university, you should get a licence, one per user.
You've clearly never seen how expensive OrCAD is. If the T&Cs allow him to use the demo for his purpose, he should be using the demo. If not, and if he has a significant number of users, he could easily be running into
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No, if OrCAD is what he needs, he should pay for it. Or rather, the department should pay for it to be put on all or some department- or university-owned machines that the students have access to. The students have no real need to be able to do the work in the comfort of their own dorm rooms, although there is a convenience factor there which suggests using a package which also has an affordable student version.
But the reason students pay those high tuition rates is precisely so that the university will b
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Why even purchase it? I work for a CAD company and Cadence competitor (so I won't make specific suggestions to remain impartial), and I know we and some of our competitors routinely donate seats to schools. I don't know exactly how the schools apply for this perk, but I'd suggest e-mailing the marketing group for that company.
CAD companies want students to learn on their software as they are more likely to recommend it if they are involved in buying decisions.
Been there... (Score:2, Insightful)
Timothy,
You might find a version of your question pop up on most EE Boards at one time or another. Most people (including myself) had this sort of experience:
I started simulation with OrCAD/PSPICE/layout/ but I moved to Linux because I hated windows.
This is how it went down:
1. I refuse to use non-GPL software on my beautiful Linux box. I'll try the GPL/free stuff.
2. Damn hard road I've taken. I am writing SPICE code when I should be simulating and laying out my boards.
3. Ok, ok... GPL is out. That stuff nee
Department policy? (Score:2)
Doesn't the department have some soft of coherent policy about software? I've taken classes at four colleges over the years (three degrees in three different fields), and the department always had a fairly narrow policy about what was acceptable and what was not. If simulation is a required part of the circuit design classes, I would expect the department to have a position on the software tools that was independent of instructors or textbooks.
Atanua? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://sol.gfxile.net/atanua/ [gfxile.net]
Not sure if it is what you are looking for. Hope it helps.
Multisim (Score:2, Informative)
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It's not infringement if you're using it in the classroom. that's the law plain and simple.
So why does anybody buy textbooks if LEGALLY you can just copy the entire book if it's to be used in a classroom.
In other words, you're wrong.
Re:simple solution (Score:4, Informative)
He's not exactly wrong, he's just deliberately misinterpreting the law to further his own agenda.
In this case, he's deliberately ignoring the part that says that such circumvention is legitimate for classroom purposes iff it's no longer readily available to acquire through legitimate channels, or only a small exerpt is actually required. In other words, you can photocopy a page from a textbook to use as a handout as an alternative to students forking over $150 for just that one page, or you can provide photocopies of books that are no longer in print, but you cannot hand out copies of software that people are still selling.
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You can't install just a small portion of the software... that clause has more to do with things like mp3 and dvd distribution... It's legal for your film studies prof to rip a scene from a movie so that you can analyze the symbolism therein, because it's only a small part of the whole product. It's not, however, legal for him to provide you with the whole movie under the guise of only studying the scene from 1:31-1:34 for symbolism, regardless of whether it's for academic purposes or not.
You can't install
Mod this man up ... (Score:2)
LTspice looks very cool.
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I'm not sure why this is modded informative.
SPICE is the software that does the simulation- it is not a front-end anywhere near as good as OrCad. That's like telling someone who wants to write a formal letter to use vi (or emacs). In fact, OrCad does its simulation through SPICE.
IIEE who uses a Mac, and I have looked into this. I have not found anything usable across all platforms, which is a real pain in the butt. As the OP already knows, PSPICE is owned by Cadence so the copyrights and patents for th
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There are a number of SPICE frontends. Right now I'm using the free LTSpice [linear.com] from Linear Technology. It's a professional quality code that the company releases for free since their main product line is actualy electronic components. The software comes with a full library of LT components of course. BUT, it's windows only. There's a Yahoo user group that may be able to answer questions about how well it runs under VMWare or Parallels, It supposedly runs well under Wine. (Winehq.org says "Works well with wine
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I know Mac users are whiny enough, but don't they have a Wine equivalent yet?
Considering WineHQ's tagline is "Run Windows applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X", I'd have to say yes.
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LTSpice does run quite well under WINE, I've done it.
LTSpice is by far my favorite circuit simulation software. It's easy to use and works well.
The only thing that can be hard is importing SPICE models for non-LT products (but it is possible).
Effectively, LTSpice is a marketing tool designed to sell Linear's IC products, but it is an *incredibly* high-quality tool in my opinion.
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Actually it's called Darwine [sourceforge.net]
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VMWare or Parallels
Or you could try VirtualBox. I have tried all three and actually prefer VirtualBox even though it is free. On that note, many post-secondary schools have access to free Microsoft software. I know I can download just about anything for free via an MSDN portal on my university webpage - you just have to be registered in computer science.
In order to keep things easy for the students (they should be learning concepts and not software) just pick the best software for the job. Should it require Windows, so
Re: (Score:2)
The poster specifically said that he does not want to force the students to purchase Windows, which would be needed with VirtualBox.
Did you read that part about how those going to educational institutes can get free Microsoft software? I do not know if it applies to his students but there is a good chance that it does. In addition, VirtualBox does not require Windows - it requires an operating system. Should the instructor get a copy X software going via wine in Linux then the image could be released saving the students the trouble of getting wine working on their own.
So why run Windows in VirtualBox when the the user could just run Windows on the hardware?
So you can also check email, browse the web, and do all the oth
Qucs ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh and so does Crossover...
If he wanted to solve the problem by throwing a ton of money at it, then he wouldn't have HAD a problem.
Instead, he asked about a free solution for education so both the instructor and the students didn't have to pay through the nose. Seriously, is there a part of "free" don't you get?
See that v