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AZ Nomad electronics forum addict
Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 71
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 8:56 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 20:02:12 +0100, nospam <nospam@please.invalid> wrote:
Quote: | Install VM ware, stick a win95 boot CD in the drive and you could be
running win95 in 10 minutes.
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That would be a neat trick considering that there's no such thing as
a win95 boot CD. The first microsoft OS on a bootable CD was windowsME.
(Maybe 98, but certainly not 95) |
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martin.shoebridge electronics forum beginner
Joined: 06 Oct 2005
Posts: 23
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Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 10:22 am Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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Doesn't crash for me under XP Pro.......... did you set the program to
W98/95 compatibility mode???
Quote: |
But this week the crashing and other quirks of Protel 3.x have finally
gotten really frustrating, so I contacted my local Altium salesguy and he
quoted me nearly $10,000 to buy a single seat of Designer 6, which is a
bit silly for my needs. He agrees. He suggested that maybe 99SE would be a
better choice, and knows a fellow who is looking to sell his copy for
$3,000.
$3,000 is affordable, but it's not a trivial amount of money. I could use
a bit of advice on this before I plunk down the cash, so TIA who can maybe
provide some guidance.
-- mike elliott
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Markus Baertschi electronics forum beginner
Joined: 20 Oct 2005
Posts: 3
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Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 1:03 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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In article <1149150284.058321.187840
@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, jeffm_@email.com says...
Quote: | How about a FAT32 partition and a Boot Manager?
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You might like a virtual PC using VMWare better. You'll avoid the
old PC sitting in a corner taking up space. VMWare allows you to
install Win98 in a virtual PC on your machine.
Markus
--
Markus Baertschi Phone: ++41 (21) 807 1677
Bas du Rossé 14b Fax : ++41 (21) 807 1678
CH-1163, Etoy Email: markus@markus.org
Switzerland Homepage: www.markus.org |
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Mike Elliott electronics forum beginner
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 14
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Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 3:21 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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On 6/3/2006 3:22 AM martin.shoebridge wrote:
Quote: | Doesn't crash for me under XP Pro.......... did you set the program to
W98/95 compatibility mode???
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Yes, I mentioned that in another response in this thread. I've tried all
the compatibility modes. It's interesting that you're not having trouble
.. . . you're running Client (Protel 3.5/7)? I'm having this problem on
both of my XP notebooks.
-- m.e. |
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Mike Elliott electronics forum beginner
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 14
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Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 3:24 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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On 6/3/2006 6:03 AM Markus Baertschi wrote:
Quote: |
You might like a virtual PC using VMWare better. You'll avoid the
old PC sitting in a corner taking up space. VMWare allows you to
install Win98 in a virtual PC on your machine.
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Thank you, Markus. I have installed VWware WS and was ready to try this
experiment when I discovered that I lost the activation key for my
Win2000 install disk. I have ordered another copy of Win2000 and will
continue this experiment when it arrives.
-- m.e. |
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martin.shoebridge electronics forum beginner
Joined: 06 Oct 2005
Posts: 23
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Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 3:43 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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Client 3.5 , no upgrades, and it runs on my Sony Viao laptop as well...... |
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Michael Schwingen electronics forum beginner
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
Posts: 1
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Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 8:11 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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In article <8o2dnftGmtrbteLZnZ2dnUVZ_vadnZ2d@adelphia.com>,
Mike Elliott <j.michael.elliott@gmail.com> wrote:
Quote: |
Protel 3.x under XP appears to be having a host of problems. The only
reproducible one is when I hit the scroll wheel on my mouse -- that's
guaranteed to cause Protel AdvPCB to crash instantly with a General
Protection error. It generally takes two or three attempts after that to
relaunch Protel, the first one or two attempts crash immediately, too.
Often Protel will have forgotten the files I was working on, and will
often forget my workspace settings, too. This error can be caused on
both of my machines, one of which has a scroll area on the touchpad.
Often, the crashes result in Protel corrupting or weirdly messing up its
own config files (.ini, .rcs, etc.) so re-launches are always an adventure.
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I run Protel 3.x (the "about" box shows EDA Client 3.6.0 as version number)
regularly under XP (US version). Yes, there are crashes from time to time,
but on my machine, these happen rarely and do not corrupt files - I can not
exactly remember how to reproduce a crash now, but they were related to
certain operations, which I avoid now, so it is quite useable for my kind of
work.
I use Protel DXP at work, and that is a low slower and crashed more often
then my old 3.6.0 running under XP.
Quote: | So what's the scoop on VMWare? Looks pretty geeky. But, as you say, at
$189, it might be the low-cost solution to an otherwise messy and
embarrassing problem. Thank you!
|
It really is - I have bought vmware 3.x to run Windows software under Linux
without booting the "real" windows machine, and I have vmware 4.5 (360-day
limited) from a german magazine CD running on XP for various tests (try out
bootable CDs etc.).
I seem to remember that vmware gave away one of their vmware server versions
- I have not tried if these work for interactive work.
Furthermore, there is the vmware player, which can run pre-configured
virtual machines at no cost - either use the limited time demo to set one
up, or start from a downloaded VM image. This should work fine for Win 98
usage.
Also I read that Microsoft is also giving away its virtual server software -
I have not tried that because the download required a passport account.
If you are happy with the functions/performance your Protel version offers,
keeping it (either in a virtual machine or on a dedicated PC) is probably
the cheapest and easiest solution.
cu
Michael
--
Some people have no repect of age unless it is bottled. |
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Simon Peacock electronics forum beginner
Joined: 15 May 2005
Posts: 47
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Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 11:29 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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I would suggest that an upgrade to Protel 99SE is a good option. The cost
may be steep but it was (if you use SP6) the most stable of the recent
releases. Polygon pours are far better and the forward annotate/back
annotate behave as you would expect. The DDB format files is the best to
use as it has the fewest incompatibilities. You must, however, enable
compact on closing.
You also need to check the licensing agreement before buying. So of the
more recent sales have a new license, in it you can't sell Protel so there
is no support or upgrades. I would avoid going to DXP (not AD2006) unless
you need some of its features. I can't say I've been impressed with it as
its slow and very resource hungry.
So a brief history of Protel:
Protel 2.8 Windows 3.x / OS2 (windows box). First stable
windows version. Very good but not compatible with newer
OS's. Forward annotate was very BAD and
tended to produce a considerable of unneeded changes.
Protel 3.0 Very good but five individual programs. Polygon
pours are slow but work.
Protel 98 Very buggy, free upgrade to Protel 99
Protel 99 Replaced at SP3 level by 99SE
Protel 99SE SP6 was the last of the good releases, a few crashes
are experienced especially with less than 512 meg RAM or
ATI video. Works best with Matrox Video or
nvidia video cards.
DXP New version (bloatware) under new license
agreement. tends to crash often, considerable numberof workarounds
required. Serious development issue is
feature addition rather than stability as main focus.
AD2006 More features than DXP. Should have been a free "bug
fix" upgrade not a new expense.
Simon
"Michael Schwingen" <news-1115562921@discworld.dascon.de> wrote in message
news:4egt46F1emhdjU1@individual.net...
Quote: | In article <8o2dnftGmtrbteLZnZ2dnUVZ_vadnZ2d@adelphia.com>,
Mike Elliott <j.michael.elliott@gmail.com> wrote:
Protel 3.x under XP appears to be having a host of problems. The only
reproducible one is when I hit the scroll wheel on my mouse -- that's
guaranteed to cause Protel AdvPCB to crash instantly with a General
Protection error. It generally takes two or three attempts after that to
relaunch Protel, the first one or two attempts crash immediately, too.
Often Protel will have forgotten the files I was working on, and will
often forget my workspace settings, too. This error can be caused on
both of my machines, one of which has a scroll area on the touchpad.
Often, the crashes result in Protel corrupting or weirdly messing up its
own config files (.ini, .rcs, etc.) so re-launches are always an
adventure.
I run Protel 3.x (the "about" box shows EDA Client 3.6.0 as version
number)
regularly under XP (US version). Yes, there are crashes from time to time,
but on my machine, these happen rarely and do not corrupt files - I can
not
exactly remember how to reproduce a crash now, but they were related to
certain operations, which I avoid now, so it is quite useable for my kind
of
work.
I use Protel DXP at work, and that is a low slower and crashed more often
then my old 3.6.0 running under XP.
So what's the scoop on VMWare? Looks pretty geeky. But, as you say, at
$189, it might be the low-cost solution to an otherwise messy and
embarrassing problem. Thank you!
It really is - I have bought vmware 3.x to run Windows software under
Linux
without booting the "real" windows machine, and I have vmware 4.5 (360-day
limited) from a german magazine CD running on XP for various tests (try
out
bootable CDs etc.).
I seem to remember that vmware gave away one of their vmware server
versions
- I have not tried if these work for interactive work.
Furthermore, there is the vmware player, which can run pre-configured
virtual machines at no cost - either use the limited time demo to set one
up, or start from a downloaded VM image. This should work fine for Win 98
usage.
Also I read that Microsoft is also giving away its virtual server
software -
I have not tried that because the download required a passport account.
If you are happy with the functions/performance your Protel version
offers,
keeping it (either in a virtual machine or on a dedicated PC) is probably
the cheapest and easiest solution.
cu
Michael
--
Some people have no repect of age unless it is bottled. |
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Mike Elliott electronics forum beginner
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 14
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Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:45 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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On 6/4/2006 8:43 AM martin.shoebridge wrote:
Quote: | Client 3.5 , no upgrades, and it runs on my Sony Viao laptop as well......
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Okay, then I'll wager that some system tray or other background app that
I'm running on both machines is the culprit.
-- Mike Elliott |
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JeffM electronics forum Guru
Joined: 02 May 2005
Posts: 1007
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Mike Elliott electronics forum beginner
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 14
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 12:22 am Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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On 6/5/2006 2:35 PM JeffM wrote:
Yikes! That's a mighty impressive page you linked to.
-- m.e. |
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JeffM electronics forum Guru
Joined: 02 May 2005
Posts: 1007
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:31 am Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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*Deep theatrical bow*
The original is 404. You may have noticed
that I had to go to the Wayback Machine (the Internet Archive)
to find an old copy.
The default config of XP reminds me of the translation of "Gumbo"
that goes: "Yeah, throw that in too." |
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Mike Elliott electronics forum beginner
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 14
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:11 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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On 6/5/2006 11:31 PM JeffM wrote:
Quote: | How clean a box are you running?
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<snip>
Quote: | The default config of XP reminds me of the translation of "Gumbo"
that goes: "Yeah, throw that in too."
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Right, well, I know my machines are not as "clean" as the default XP
setup listed on that link. I'm got all kinds of exciting and normally
zero-trouble background apps showing in the system tray, including Avast
antivirus, OpenOffice Quicklauncher, VNC Server, Gmail Notifier, NTI
Shadow (background backup operations), Personal Smartcheck (HD
monitoring), Java Platform . . . and a dozen or so more bits. None of
which normally cause any trouble at all. But maybe Protel 3.x is deeply
disturbed by one or more of them.
Doesn't "safe mode" provide some way to launch XP in a cleanly way?
More useful, though, might be a means to selectively launch my "special"
apps so I can trial and error troubleshoot for possible conflicts with
Protel.
-- m.e. |
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JeffM electronics forum Guru
Joined: 02 May 2005
Posts: 1007
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:00 pm Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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Quote: | [I've] got all kinds of exciting and normally zero-trouble
background apps showing in the system tray[...]
Doesn't "safe mode" provide some way to launch XP in a [clean] way?
Mike Elliott
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Yeah. Safe Mode won't go thru the Startup List launching things.
The problem is that it uses generic device drivers and will look like
crap
--not really a solution.
The solution is simple: just follow my motto:
"Don't waste RAM on an app until you actually NEED it running.
(That goes double WRT boot time.)" |
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Brad Velander electronics forum Guru Wannabe
Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 118
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Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2006 4:48 am Post subject:
Re: Protel 99SE - a good choice
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Mike,
One thing that Protel didn't get along with in the P98 & P99SE version
time frame was antivirus scans on open/run and close/save. Don't know about
back at 3.X versions but just thought I would mention it as a likely suspect
if your antivirus was set up for scanning on file open/run and close/save.
That did tend to just crash during file opening or closing though, sounds
like your problems are more intermittent during actual design operations.
--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.
"Mike Elliott" <j.michael.elliott@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:QOidnZ7SkpCiBhjZnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@adelphia.com...
Quote: | On 6/5/2006 11:31 PM JeffM wrote:
SNIP
Right, well, I know my machines are not as "clean" as the default XP setup
listed on that link. I'm got all kinds of exciting and normally
zero-trouble background apps showing in the system tray, including Avast
antivirus, OpenOffice Quicklauncher, VNC Server, Gmail Notifier, NTI
SNIP |
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