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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Altium free package confirmed!

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vasi

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Joined: 23/03/2007
Location: Romania
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Posted: 12:50pm 05 Sep 2014

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This is huge! Dave confirms it and says is actually good!

Dave said And before anyone mentions it, no, I�m pretty sure they are not buying Eagle or another low end player. Because Altium really do have their own free / low cost package coming out soon to compete head-to-head with Eagle and others. It�s real, I�ve been given a sneak peek at it, because they wanted my feedback on it after my rant shook them up a bit and helped them change direction (for the better).

The problem is, when that will be? 'cause if we must wait for those new acquisitions first, to develop the commercial high end version, then it will take years and we need it now.Edited by vasi 2014-09-06

Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton
Elvish name: Mablung Miriel
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MicroBlocks

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Joined: 12/05/2012
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Posted: 05:31pm 05 Sep 2014

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I am happy enough with diptrace,as is eagle for many others. Enough for the lower end player.
Altium has a high(steep) learning curve, completely unnecessary for 99.99% of those users.
They already lost the battle before they (will) start.

Microblocks. Build with logic.

bigmik

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Joined: 20/06/2011
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Posted: 09:47pm 05 Sep 2014

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Interesting Vasi,

I wonder if it will be able to read in my PCBs I designed with Protel 99se?>

Keep us informed if you hear anything..

On a side note.. I saw this at the bottom of the page

TRS-80 Tear down

Brought tears to my eyes.. Probably from the memory of all the cigarette smoke Don used to blow in my eyes whilst we were staring at these beasts.. I cut my teecth on TRS-80s

Mick

Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<<

Grogster

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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9589

Posted: 10:05pm 05 Sep 2014

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TZAdvantage said I am happy enough with diptrace,as is eagle for many others. Enough for the lower end player.
Altium has a high(steep) learning curve, completely unnecessary for 99.99% of those users.
They already lost the battle before they (will) start.

Well, quite.

Agreed.

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

vasi

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Joined: 23/03/2007
Location: Romania
Posts: 1697

Posted: 02:31am 08 Oct 2014

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TZAdvantage said
Altium has a high(steep) learning curve, completely unnecessary for 99.99% of those users.
They already lost the battle before they (will) start.

It will be a little different that Altium Designer. New interface, new shortcuts. It will be an Eagle/KiCAD killer - this is the goal.

But they "lost the battle" elsewhere:
- No local savings - all are cloud based.
- All your final projects are public. The temporary work (only one at a time) is private until you finalize it.
- Only on final projects you are able to generate gerbers, which can be downloaded.
- You can have private projects if you buy this right (the more projects, the more expensive).

So, is a no go for me. Not interested even an millis. I will continue to use Eagle, DipTrace, KiCAD, gEDA.

Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton
Elvish name: Mablung Miriel
Beyound Arduino Lang

vasi

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Joined: 23/03/2007
Location: Romania
Posts: 1697

Posted: 04:47am 09 Oct 2014

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Another huge handicap is that it will be windows only.
Eagle, Kicad and gEDA are already cross platform applications as DipTrace is. No excuse for the free EDA from Altium. Why? Here are some reasons:

- it is written from scratch so, they can chose even the language. Personally, I guess that this one will be the base for a totally rewritten Altium Designer;
- DipTrace is a Delphi application and Embarcadero Delphi can create native applications for Windows, OS X, iOS and Android (they will offer some viewers and maybe some light project editors for touch screen devices in the future). Linux is in the work so we soon will have DipTrace for Linux as well. Altium Designer was a Delphi application but somewhere in time, someone decided to rewrite a lot (not all) of code in C++ and C#. Now they are trapped in the Windows world. A big fail.

(Parenthesis)
Someone will say that they can't justify the extra development effort required to support the other two major operating systems but that is not true because there is no extra effort. You write your application only once and the compiler will generate code for all the targeted operating systems. And now it will be a good time (I guess is the only chance) for them to start working on a cross platform application.
(/Parenthesis)

- they have a huge capital to protect. In time, they will be equaled by DipTrace and KiCAD regarding the options and features. BTW, KiCAD already offers the "push&shove" feature in the development branch. Which the free EDA from Altium does not have!!! Look here.Edited by vasi 2014-10-10

Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton
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graynomad

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Joined: 21/07/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 122

Posted: 04:00am 14 Oct 2014

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I'm still interested in it but the cloud-only storage is probably a deal breaker. This feature alone must have accounted for 90% of the negative comments on EEblog.

Rob Gray, AKA the Graynomad, www.robgray.com

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