Easy-PC to Circuitmaker Conversion

[RST Engineering \(jw\)]

A very, very long time ago, I bought the original DOS version of Easy-PC out
of an ad in Ham Radio magazine. With all respect to the current product,
that old DOS sucker was about the buggiest thing this side of Microsoft.

At any rate, the LAST board I laid out in the Easy-PC is about at the end of
it's mercifully long (20 years or so) life but I need a few dozen more
boards to match up with a few hundred dollars worth of metalwork so as not
to waste metal. The PC board house that made the last run of boards told me
that this was the end, that they couldn't set up for photo negatives any
more.

The old DOS program will NOT run under Windoze, no how, no way, no sir.
I've tried every trick I know of and it still jams on loadup (even AFTER I
get it out of its original 5" floppy format). However, the trial version of
Easy-PC 8 loads the old board just fine. The only problem is that it will
give me a PRINT version only, no Gerbers. My current PC board house can
only work from gerbers -- they put their camera into storage ten years or so
ago.

The point being:

1. Does anybody have a version of Easy-PC that gives gerbers/NC files and
would be willing to do a quick import and export of files for me? I
promise, no more requests if I can get this one job done.

2. Failing that, does anybody have an old legal copy of Easy-PC that they
would be willing to sell me for a reasonable price?

3. Failing that, does anybody have a way of translating Easy-PC files to
Protel/Traxmaker so that I can generate the gerbers myself? Traxmaker says
"TraxMaker can import Protel Text PCB files directly, allowing you to use
all or part of board designs produced in Protel's Advanced PCB2 and
Advanced PCB3 products. Once in TraxMaker, these board designs can be
modified and saved as a TraxMaker PCB file or a Protel Text PCB file."

Jim

 

[Chuck Harris]

The old DOS program will NOT run under Windoze, no how, no way, no sir.
I've tried every trick I know of and it still jams on loadup (even AFTER I
get it out of its original 5" floppy format). However, the trial version of
Easy-PC 8 loads the old board just fine. The only problem is that it will
give me a PRINT version only, no Gerbers. My current PC board house can
only work from gerbers -- they put their camera into storage ten years or so
ago.

Hi Jim,

You probably don't know this, but every pc that will run any flavor of
windoze will boot up under good old dos just fine.

Boot up your pc under your old dos disks, and run your version of PCB program
from there.

If by some strange chance you don't have any dos boot disks, you can
download a free copy of "freedos" and I am sure it will work just fine.

-Chuck

 

[Martin Riddle]

You can create a DOS boot disk in windows XP. But just make sure you don't need any USB peripherals, like a USB mouse.
Hope you still have a FAT partition

Cheers

 

[RST Engineering \(jw\)]

But you don't understand. The old DOS program will only output a printer
file that is intended to go to a camera for photo shooting. Nobody any more
takes camera art and shoots it to make boards. Everybody wants gerbers/NC.
The old DOS program will NOT output gerbers/NC.

I need a translation from this old DOS program to gerbers/NC for a lousy
couple of dozen boards.

Jim

 

[Joerg]

Hi JW,

I need a translation from this old DOS program to gerbers/NC for a lousy
couple of dozen boards.

If all other attempts fail maybe you could print it out on a very good
printer, then scan it back into a program that can store the file in a
format that board fab houses accept. Just give the board fab a ring and
see if they'd accept HPGL, DXF or some other popular format that a
graphics program can generate. I don't know whether there are Gerber
converter programs that could spit out Gerber from a scanned file but it
wouldn't surprise me if such software exists.

Else you could talk to a board fab outside the US, maybe in a country
where hi-tech isn't as advanced as here. Chances are, they might still
have their cameras.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Leon Heller]

A very, very long time ago, I bought the original DOS version of Easy-PC
out of an ad in Ham Radio magazine. With all respect to the current
product, that old DOS sucker was about the buggiest thing this side of
Microsoft.

At any rate, the LAST board I laid out in the Easy-PC is about at the end
of it's mercifully long (20 years or so) life but I need a few dozen more
boards to match up with a few hundred dollars worth of metalwork so as not
to waste metal. The PC board house that made the last run of boards told
me that this was the end, that they couldn't set up for photo negatives
any more.

The old DOS program will NOT run under Windoze, no how, no way, no sir.
I've tried every trick I know of and it still jams on loadup (even AFTER I
get it out of its original 5" floppy format). However, the trial version
of Easy-PC 8 loads the old board just fine. The only problem is that it
will give me a PRINT version only, no Gerbers. My current PC board house
can only work from gerbers -- they put their camera into storage ten years
or so ago.

The point being:

1. Does anybody have a version of Easy-PC that gives gerbers/NC files and
would be willing to do a quick import and export of files for me? I
promise, no more requests if I can get this one job done.

I've got the latest version of Easy-PC. I'll generate the Gerbers for you if
you email them to me.

Leon

 

[Peter Bennett]

But you don't understand. The old DOS program will only output a printer
file that is intended to go to a camera for photo shooting. Nobody any more
takes camera art and shoots it to make boards. Everybody wants gerbers/NC.
The old DOS program will NOT output gerbers/NC.

I need a translation from this old DOS program to gerbers/NC for a lousy
couple of dozen boards.

Jim

Some time ago, on a Protel mailing list, someone posted a link to a
company that could convert films to Gerber - unfortunately, I saved
the post at work, and I'm off work til after new years - I'll try to
remember this, and post the info then...


A quick Google for "convert film to gerber" led to this list:

Applied Cam Engineering 545 West Lambert Rd Brea Ca. 92621 Internet:
[email protected] Modem: +714.529-7313 Voice: +714.529-1553 FAX:
+714.529-4202 Edward G. Shea

Artnet Technology Inc. 2109 O'Toole Ave. Suite G San Jose, CA Phone:
(408) 954-8383 Fax: (408) 954-8380

Custom Photo & Design 340 Qinnipiac St. Bldg 35 Wallingford, CT 06492
phone: (203)-265-4479 Ray Long fax: (203)-284-8740

========================================= I have used this one with
success.

Infinite Graphics Minneapolis, MN (612) 721-6283 Ron Videen
=========================================

Infinite Technologies Inc. 17332 Von Karman Ave. #145 Irvine, CA
Phone: (714) 975-0765 Fax: (714) 975-0601

Merriwether Circuit Design, Inc 40 Hill Ave. Fort Walton Beach, FL
32548 Phone: (904) 243-8144 Fax: (904) 243-9455

Phototool Engineering Chelmsford, MA has a scanning system from
ScanCAD 508-256-8530 Mark Devereaux

ScanCad International Denver 303-986-7707

--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
new newsgroup users info : http://vancouver-webpages.com/nnq
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca

 

[RST Engineering \(jw\)]

You've got it, and many thanks for your help. BTW, how do you like
Easy-PC. I hate to throw away six years of building a library for
Circuitmaker, but it looks like Protel is doing their best to kill the
sucker off.

If I hadn't been a beta tester for Microcode back in the old days and been
given a free production copy, I sure as hell wouldn't have purchased that
piece of trash.

Jim

 

[Leon Heller]

You've got it, and many thanks for your help. BTW, how do you like
Easy-PC. I hate to throw away six years of building a library for
Circuitmaker, but it looks like Protel is doing their best to kill the
sucker off.

If I hadn't been a beta tester for Microcode back in the old days and been
given a free production copy, I sure as hell wouldn't have purchased that
piece of trash.

I used Easy-PC for years from when it first came out (Customer Number
13114). WestDev bought Number One when it eventually went bust, noticed
that I was the longest-serving original customer and asked me if I would
be interested in beta-testing their new Pulsonix software. They recently
gave me a copy of the latest Easy-PC V8 to try out and I was quite
impressed with it. I much prefer Pulsonix, of course.

Leon

 

[Rich Grise]

But you don't understand. The old DOS program will only output a printer
file that is intended to go to a camera for photo shooting. Nobody any more
takes camera art and shoots it to make boards. Everybody wants gerbers/NC.
The old DOS program will NOT output gerbers/NC.

I need a translation from this old DOS program to gerbers/NC for a lousy
couple of dozen boards.

Is it out of the question to just have a negative shot and make the
boards yourself? I laid out a little circuit by hand once, and took
the tapes (2-sided, with extra register marks) to a photoshop - nothing
to do with electronics - and they printed them 6-up for me; I got a Radio
Schlock sensitized board and etched it myself and cut it up. A little
piece of #30 wire-wrap wire can substitute for plated-thru holes.

Or, find a retro board house. ;-)

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[RST Engineering \(jw\)]

I think I may have you beat. My original DOS copy was on a 5" floppy and
the label on the disk itself was done with a dot matrix printer. I don't
remember whether or not I kept either the serial or my customer number, as I
was NOT particularly impressed with Dos version 1.0 or whatever it was.

Jim