They have been pushing Allegro (AKA PCB Designer) very hard for the past year. Worst than that, beware of upgrading to version 16. They also changed the licensing structure and eliminated the floating license. They now only support MAC lock, or license server. On the bright side, since they are discontinuing it – we shouldn’t expect any new bugs, I mean features introduced.

Assi

---

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John B. Stephensen
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 12:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [eagle] PCB Software

I received an email from from Mentor Graphics indicating that the OrCAD software that AMSAT has licensed is being disontinued:

»

Cadence is discontinuing OrCAD Layout Long anticipated, Cadence has finally begun the end-of-life (EOL) process for OrCAD Layout. Cadence distributors emailed their customers in late June that: 'Effective July 31, 2007, Cadence will no longer sell ... OrCAD Layout based technology products¿ We acknowledge that transitioning software systems is never easy and is often a juggling act between investing in learning new technologies and meeting current business priorities.' Their only recommended transition path is a move to Allegro technology - infamous for its hard-to-learn, expensive, high-speed upgrades.

This would leave PADS as the only viable layout software. Has anyone heard from Cadence directly?

73,

John

KD6OZH