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Ben Twijnstra wrote: > > Hi Valeria, > > > Windows9x is no more supported? > > Nope. Then again, if you're doing any serious development, W98 is not really > the right platform. > > Best regards, > > Ben I always find it amusing when people say that older software and hardware are not for "serious" development anymore. Sure there are better systems and software out now, but five year old software and computer hardware do not lose any capabilities. Unlike mechanical devices which wear out and degrade with time, computers run just as well 10 years later as they did the day they were new. I used my last PC with Windows 95 for five years. The real reason I gave it up was because vendors dropped support for 95. Windows 98 is a stable platform and requires less hardware support to make it function well. As long as you can get the software you want and it is still supported on your platform, why upgrade? Win98 still works just as well as it did when it came out in 1999, in fact, better! -- Rick "rickman" Collins rick.collins@XYarius.com Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY removed. Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company Specializing in DSP and FPGA design URL http://www.arius.com 4 King Ave 301-682-7772 Voice Frederick, MD 21701-3110 301-682-7666 FAXArticle: 57751
> Exactly which new families did not "make it" in the market? QuickLogic, AMD, ICT, Phillips, etc. there are quite a few. They start off touting a new line/family, the reps come in pushing the stuff and telling me it is great and it will be around a long time. They don't end up winning enough market share, and the companies drop future plans to fill out the line, or they obsolete parts, or they sell the line off and someelse does the same. > any reason to expect the LC4000 (which is what I believe you are calling > Mach 4000) will not be here as long as any other PLD family. I talked to the Lattice factory HotLine on Thursday. I asked him: "Why are there so few packages available for the 4000? "Which would be better to design in, the 4000 or 4A?" He recommended the 4A. I asked him why I did not see much dist activity with the 4000, there was ten times the amount with the 4A. He said the majority of what they sell is still in the 1000 and 2000 lines. There was a lot more business with 4A as compared to 4000. The majority of business with prog logic is already established in older designs using older parts. These new familes that come out have a hard time winning new sockets. There are more new familes coming out than there is business for all of them, and some of them will not survive. They will not win enough market share. >> ... better pricing on the Lattice parts than I have on the Xilinx CR. >> Once the size gets up a bit, the CR parts get very, very expensive. Is that true comparing the CR-II parts as well? The CR-II pricing seemed very good. It is looking more attractive to me. Chris.Article: 57752
Chris_S wrote: > > > Exactly which new families did not "make it" in the market? > > QuickLogic, AMD, ICT, Phillips, etc. there are quite a few. They start off > touting a new line/family, the reps come in pushing the stuff and telling me > it is great and it will be around a long time. They don't end up winning > enough market share, and the companies drop future plans to fill out the > line, or they obsolete parts, or they sell the line off and someelse does > the same. Quicklogic is still around and selling parts! Likewise AMD sold their business and it is still florishing at Lattice. Phillips sold their lines and Xilinx killed off one of the better, more successful ones because they "improved" it and brought out the XPLA3. ICT is still selling parts. None of these lines have died other than a few of the Philips ones. In any event, most of the ones you list were SPLDs which are still very popular and can be bought nearly anywhere. PLD lines being obsoleted and no longer available is an uncommon occurrence. > > any reason to expect the LC4000 (which is what I believe you are calling > > Mach 4000) will not be here as long as any other PLD family. > > I talked to the Lattice factory HotLine on Thursday. I asked him: "Why are > there so few packages available for the 4000? > "Which would be better to design in, the 4000 or 4A?" He recommended the > 4A. I asked him why I did not see much dist activity with the 4000, there > was ten times the amount with the 4A. He said the majority of what they > sell is still in the 1000 and 2000 lines. There was a lot more business > with 4A as compared to 4000. Of course. The LC4000 parts are still very new while the 4A line has a lot of users from past design wins. But that says *nothing* about what parts will be used in the future, near or distant. > The majority of business with prog logic is already established in older > designs using older parts. These new familes that come out have a hard time > winning new sockets. There are more new familes coming out than there is > business for all of them, and some of them will not survive. They will not > win enough market share. I can assure you that the newer parts get more design wins than the older ones. If nothing else, the chip makers will give great pricing on the new parts to buy sockets while you will pay near list on older parts, even just slightly older parts. I found it very difficult to get a good price on the ACEX parts and they are only two years old! But I got much better relative pricing on the Cyclones! > >> ... better pricing on the Lattice parts than I have on the Xilinx CR. > >> Once the size gets up a bit, the CR parts get very, very expensive. > > Is that true comparing the CR-II parts as well? The CR-II pricing seemed > very good. It is looking more attractive to me. When I got Xilinx's best and final offer on the CR and CR2, the Lattice LC5512 was still be best price. If you are working with smaller parts, then the prices are about the same. I can't say I worried too much with the LC4000 line on price. Once I saw the excellent price on the LC5512 and the much improved functionality (memory, PLL, byte wide programming from an MCU...) I stopped asking about the LC4000 for my app. If you want to discuss details, email me. -- Rick "rickman" Collins rick.collins@XYarius.com Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY removed. Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company Specializing in DSP and FPGA design URL http://www.arius.com 4 King Ave 301-682-7772 Voice Frederick, MD 21701-3110 301-682-7666 FAXArticle: 57753
I have to ask the question why XST prints such a useless message as: FATAL_ERROR:Xst:Portability/export/Port_Main.h:126:1.13 - This application has discovered an exceptional condition from which it cannot recover. Process will terminate. To resolve this error, please consult the Answers Database and other online resources at http://support.xilinx.com. If you need further assistance, please open a Webcase by clicking on the "WebCase" link at http://support.xilinx.com Error: XST failed This tells me absolutely nothing about the problem. Looking at the Xilinx website has never gleaned any useful information. I am able to figure out the what the problem is, but I waste a lot time doing this trying to pin down the problem when I get such uninformative messages as above. So if XST knows something is wrong, why is it unable to tell me. If it wont tell me, I certainly can not tell tech support if I want to open a WebCase. I hope someone from Xilinx can give me an answer to this.Article: 57754
rickman wrote: > > Jim Granville wrote: > > > > rickman wrote: > > > > > > Jim Granville wrote: > > > > > > > > Not entirely - the new Lattice devices offer 5V tolerance, but they > > > > also spec 'no more than 32 IO' at a time. > > > > Strange spec, how does one IO 'know' the state of another ?! > > > > > > That is 64 IOs at once and each one sinks current. Seems the total > > > current sets the limit. I tried to get more detail on this to find a > > > way to use it with the PC/104 bus, but they kept telling me to consider > > > a different family. > > <snip> > > > > Where did you find the sink current info/value - from the FAE ? > > > > I get this info from their Data: > > > > #5. Maximum of 64 I/Os per device with VIN > 3.6V is allowed. > > # > > #IIH 2 Input High Leakage Current > > # 3.6V < VIN = 5.5V, Tj = 105°C <= 20 µA > > # 3.6V < VIN = 5.5V, Tj = 130°C <= 50 µA > > > > So that does not look to me like a clamping diode, which is how > > some others get their '5V tolerance' (just add a resistor :) > > > > Still leaves open the question of why a finite limit on the > > NUMBER of IO's that can have > 3.6V applied. > > > > It sounds tempting to get a device, and take 65 IO's to > 3.6V, and > > watch what happens :)) > > I was told this by both an FAE and support by email. I am sure both are > just parroting whatever is the original source of the info. I could not > get them to give me any more detail, such as what effect a series > resistance or other source impedance would have on the spec. > > From the FAE... > "You are correct, the 5512MB does have a limit of 64 IOs that can be > driven above 3.6V. This is due to the leakage current that appears when > an input is biased above VCCio. They need to keep the total amount of > this leakage current below a certain number and that worked out to 64 > IOs." > > From support... > "The 64 IOs 5V restriction is a reliability requirement for EE9 > technology to ensure that we meet oxide FIT rate requirement." > <snip> Thanks - Now, that support reply makes sense, the first one is a mangled version of the second one. If it is actually an oxide stress FIT parameter, then the 64 is an arbitary number, and failures are related to IP * Time products. The Oxide stress FIT of a single IP is finite, with more IPs you just ramp the statistical chances of ONE having a failure. It would be nice if they published more info on this, like the voltage/FIT slope, and just what the actual FIT value is, so in design you can decide on additional clamping, or if other measures are needed. There are processs where the gate-oxide thickness can be varied across the die ( and even thresholds, within a gate oxide ), but perhaps they have not made it to PLDs yet ? -jgArticle: 57755
"Josh Model" <model@ll.mit.edu> wrote in message news:<hr4Fa.51$Du1.40@llnews.ll.mit.edu>... > Hi all, > > Sorry to echo the common call on this group, but I've added a little twist. > I was looking for FPGA prototype boards that fit the PC/104 form factor and > standard. I've checked out the optimagic site, but most of the companies > listed there either don't the newer fpga's. Closest I came was Nova > Engineering's Altera boards, but Xilinx is much more in my comfort zone. > > Any suggestions? Thanks. > > --Josh Model > MIT/LL Check out Jacyl Technology at www.jacyltechnology.com. There is a Xilinx CPLD based PC104 board (RP-3200) and we have a Spartan IIe 300K PC104 comming out in the next month (XG-300K).Article: 57757
> Quicklogic is still around and selling parts! Likewise AMD sold their > business and it is still florishing at Lattice. Phillips sold their > lines and Xilinx killed off one of the better, more successful ones > because they "improved" it and brought out the XPLA3. ICT is still > selling parts. None of these lines have died other than a few of the > Philips ones. > In any event, most of the ones you list were SPLDs which are still very > popular and can be bought nearly anywhere. Wow, the stories I could tell. One company promises me a price of $6 and three years later they try raising the price to $18. Another company sells me two models of their own programmers, and a few years later they no longer support either of them. I get promised "these parts will be really well stocked" and then a couple years later there are none around. Special order only. I have a much different set of experiences and history with these than you have. Chris.Article: 57758
Chris_S wrote: > > rickman wrote: > > Quicklogic is still around and selling parts! Likewise AMD sold their > > business and it is still florishing at Lattice. Phillips sold their > > lines and Xilinx killed off one of the better, more successful ones > > because they "improved" it and brought out the XPLA3. > > ICT is still selling parts. > > None of these lines have died other than a few of the Philips ones. Not quite. AMD and Philips both closed FAB lines on their off-spun device families. ( ie they sold the business, but continued to act as foundries, then pulled the plug ) This did cause some upheavel as new devices had to be sourced and qualified, and the number of part types involved was not insignificant - when a FAB line shuts ALL parts that went down that line become EOL. > > In any event, most of the ones you list were SPLDs which are still very > > popular and can be bought nearly anywhere. > > Wow, the stories I could tell. One company promises me a price of $6 and > three years later they try raising the price to $18. Another company sells > me two models of their own programmers, and a few years later they no longer > support either of them. I get promised "these parts will be really well > stocked" and then a couple years later there are none around. Special order > only. I have a much different set of experiences and history with these > than you have. The PLD users do suffer from the vendors product line management. Most other commodity line suppliers have far fewer part variants, which helps the supply line, and also increases volumes. Distis often have significant MOQs, and with many part-variants, that becomes a catch-22 problem. In PLDs, we see multiple speed grades (don't see that much anymore in uC and Logic devices ), and multiple temperature grades, plus the package/voltage/power variants. Other sectors, like uC and Logic, are trending quite fast to single temp grades, and as Wide a Vcc range as is process practical, and option fuses, all to streamline usage and rationalise stocks. - jgArticle: 57759
Ed Diego <ed@stevens8436.fslife.co.uk> wrote: : Hello, : I need to design a PCI board. I was thinking about using a Spartan2E to do : all the hard work. Would the I/O pins of the Sparan2E be able to connect : straight to a PCI bus? No, if you still need to cope with 5V signalling : I'm thinking in terms of voltage levels. Also, : before the board is made I was planning on making a prototype using wire : wrap board. Is PCI or the Spartan2E particularly susceptible to noise : problems? It's susceptible. Think about getting a prototyping card, e.g. the Memec card with the xc2s200 Bye -- Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt --------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------Article: 57760
On 03 Jul 2003 13:54:21 GMT, enrique.laserna@web.de wrote: >You guys should also look into Innoveda's Visual hdl (Now bought by >Mentor, I think). Hmmm, Mentor, who created Renoir (now HDL Designer). I suspect one of these tools may not be supported much longer... - BrianArticle: 57761
In a previous post I got into the subject of CPLDs going obsolete. Hey folks, what ever happened to standardization with logic anyway? Remember 7400 series, 16V8's, and 22V10's ? Those were logic standards with multi-source vendors and common pinouts. Why is it still necessary for every CPLD vendor on the planet to put out all proprietary families? Why does standardization not apply to CPLDs? I can buy the argument that once upon a time the stuff was cutting edge with different vendors doing things very differently. But I don't see that anymore. Almost all the familes have ISP, nearly all of them have one or more lines with very similar capabilities to other vendor lines, they nearly all offer the same set of macro cell and package options, and the new familes are all going full CMOS with zero static power. They seem to be converging in everyway - except for the pinouts. I think the vendors themselves would benefit greatly from getting together and writing a common standard for a base line family from 32-512 cells with identical pinouts. God knows we poor OEM designers would love to see it. They could still do their special lines as well, but having at least one common CPLD industry standard would eliminate many headaches and board revs for everyone. The vendors probably once believed that they would see better pricing with proprietary lines. But I don't think it makes any difference. They still have to compete aggressively against each other with pricing now, and they often compete very aggressively. The feature/capability differences may have been significant once upon a time, but today most of the capabilities are common to all of the mainstream familes. Standards benefit everyone. Just my $0.02 worth. Chris.Article: 57762
On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 05:47:25 -0700, lecroy wrote: > I am reposting after a memo from reader siting problems using the Xilinx > link to post to this group. Sorry about any problems this may have > caused. > > After the release of Alliance 3 support was no longer offered for the > XC3xxx family. Worse, if you did not happen to have the original > software that supported these devices, Xilinx would not sell you a copy. > Even today we still have product that uses the 3xxx family. > > I am looking at upgrading our group to Allience 5.x and again see that > Xilinx has dropped all support for Spartan. Other families were dropped > as well. We would now need three copies of software running to support > the Xilinx devices we use. Of course, not all the Xilinx tools like to > be co-installed, so it's multiple computers or swap installs. > > Xilinx, what is your problem? Altera may drop parts, but their router > continues to support all of their devices. Is your software so poorly > written that it is so difficult to maintain parts that you need to drop > them? I could understand if the parts were no longer available, or you > at least sold older copies of your software. If you are going to continue to use parts long after they are obsolete then you should archive the tools that you used to do the original design. It's hardly realistic to expect todays tools to support parts that have been obsolete for 10 years. Periodically some major component of the tools gets completely rewritten, when that happens it's hard enough for them to put in support for all of the current parts let alone add support for all of the old parts.Article: 57763
Ed Diego wrote: > > Hello, > > I need to design a PCI board. I was thinking about using a Spartan2E to do > all the hard work. Would the I/O pins of the Sparan2E be able to connect > straight to a PCI bus? I'm thinking in terms of voltage levels. Also, > before the board is made I was planning on making a prototype using wire > wrap board. Is PCI or the Spartan2E particularly susceptible to noise > problems? If you read the PCI spec you will find that there are limits to the length of the wires between the PCI connector and the part which drives the IO. I expect that using a wire wrap socket will make it hard to meet that spec. If your PCI bus is the 5 volt version, the Spartan IIE is not spec'd to drive that standard. PCI has specific requirements on the IOs which a chip must be rated to drive. -- Rick "rickman" Collins rick.collins@XYarius.com Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY removed. Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company Specializing in DSP and FPGA design URL http://www.arius.com 4 King Ave 301-682-7772 Voice Frederick, MD 21701-3110 301-682-7666 FAXArticle: 57764
On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 08:48:04 +0200, Thomas Heller wrote: > Steve Lass <lass@xilinx.com> writes: > >> Jim Granville wrote: >> >>> Can we get a quick summary of what's removed, and what legacy versions >>> of SW are needed to support which family ? >>> >> The current software (version 5.1i, 5.2i, 6.1i) supports Virtex, >> Virtex-E, Virtex-II, Virtex-II Pro, Spartan II, Spartan IIE, and >> Spartan-3. >> ISE Classics (version 4.2i) supports XC4000E, XC4000L, XC4000EX, >> XC4000XL, XC4000XLA, Spartan, and SpartanXL. >> >> Contact the hotline if you need software for: 3.1i supporting XC3000A, >> XC3000L and XC5200. XACT 6 supporting XC2000, XC3000, and XC4000, >> XC4000A and XC5200. > > This sounds like I better terminate my Xilinx software subscription, and > use the free versions instead. > > I recently changed my PC to a new one, and tried to install the licensed > version of ISE 4.2, because I need Spartan and Spartan XL. It was a pain > to make it work again because one design uses FPGA express, and it always > complained about the license being invalid. > > The only solution was, as a Xilinx FAE told me, to use use tool to change > the volume serial number of my hard disk to the one that the old PC had. > Fortunately I didn' have to reregister Windows XP again. > > Thomas You complaint is with Synopsys not Xilinx, the Xilinx tools don't have any hardware enforced licensing.Article: 57765
On Thu, 03 Jul 2003 09:23:08 -0700, lecroy wrote: >> I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't use the Spartan chips. But >> I am curious as to why you would use such an old technology. Certainly >> there are cheaper, faster, bigger chips available. >> > In our case, the designs are done. In are market we are not that > sensitive to part costs. The real cost is qualifying a new design just > to phase out a part the is still being sold. New designs, no problem. In extremely long product life markets you have to warehouse everything. Any board that is old enough to have a 3000 on it is full of components that haven't been manufactured for years. Chances are you have parts that were made by companies that aren't even in business anymore. The only way that you can continue to make those boards is to have stockpiles of parts. If you are stockpiling parts then you can stockpile software and a couple of old computers to run it on. Keeping and a couple of old Sparc 1s or 386 PCs in the corner is far cheaper then stockpiling components. One more thing, you said the reason for continuing to build outdated systems is the cost of qualifying a new design. Well the same goes for tools, you don't want to have to qualify a new tool set on the old parts just so you can do a bug fix. You know that the old tools worked, you don't know what bugs would pop up in the new tools if you tried to use them for a really outdated part.Article: 57766
On Thu, 03 Jul 2003 22:10:58 +0000, Uwe Bonnes wrote: > > B.t.w.: For maintaining legacy version of windows software, the windows > emulator wine (www.winehq.com) might be an option for the > not-so-faint-hearted. Uwe is right about this. I can say from personal experience that Wine will run all of the versions of the Xilinx tools going back to the 3.x releases. Chances are that it will handle earlier releases also, it can probably even support the XACT tools which ran on Windows 3.1 as I remember. You could also use Win4Lin which runs any Win9x on top of Linux. Version 2.x was contemporary with Win95 so you certainly could use Win95/98 on Win4Lin to run them.Article: 57767
Hello, I need to design a PCI board. I was thinking about using a Spartan2E to do all the hard work. Would the I/O pins of the Sparan2E be able to connect straight to a PCI bus? I'm thinking in terms of voltage levels. Also, before the board is made I was planning on making a prototype using wire wrap board. Is PCI or the Spartan2E particularly susceptible to noise problems? Thanks in advance,Article: 57768
remember log division from schoool, now try that in base 2! "Ketan" <ketone007sa@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:cf47f3cc.0307042130.1eec1888@posting.google.com... > hello there > i am relatively new to VHDL..this might sound simple > any ideas how to carry out division (floating point) in VHDL??Article: 57769
Chris_S wrote: > > In a previous post I got into the subject of CPLDs going obsolete. Hey > folks, what ever happened to standardization with logic anyway? Remember > 7400 series, 16V8's, and 22V10's ? Those were logic standards with > multi-source vendors and common pinouts. Why is it still necessary for > every CPLD vendor on the planet to put out all proprietary families? Why > does standardization not apply to CPLDs? > > I can buy the argument that once upon a time the stuff was cutting edge with > different vendors doing things very differently. But I don't see that > anymore. Almost all the familes have ISP, nearly all of them have one or > more lines with very similar capabilities to other vendor lines, they nearly > all offer the same set of macro cell and package options, and the new > familes are all going full CMOS with zero static power. They seem to be > converging in everyway - except for the pinouts. > > I think the vendors themselves would benefit greatly from getting together > and writing a common standard for a base line family from 32-512 cells with > identical pinouts. God knows we poor OEM designers would love to see it. > They could still do their special lines as well, but having at least one > common CPLD industry standard would eliminate many headaches and board revs > for everyone. > > The vendors probably once believed that they would see better pricing with > proprietary lines. But I don't think it makes any difference. They still > have to compete aggressively against each other with pricing now, and they > often compete very aggressively. The feature/capability differences may > have been significant once upon a time, but today most of the capabilities > are common to all of the mainstream familes. Standards benefit everyone. And, you will find FULL support from the vendors, provided it is THEIR pinout that becomes the standard :) Things are not quite as diverse in the pin-domain as you think - there IS some pinout, and even design migration in CPLD, but outside the pin-domain, there is more variation than you realize. Atmel have pin-compatible devices, with Altera's, and the earlier Coolrunner devices were also pin-compatible. Atmel also have a POF2JED utility, that migrates the Altera binary file, to a Atmel one. Seems they must map reasonably well internally. We have ported Coolrunner designs to Atmel, and also ported Atmel designs to Coolrunner. ( and even Xilinx FPGA to Atmel CPLD ) The fish hooks appear in the details: Total IOs are close, but not quite identical, and dedicated clock features are not quite the same. Macrocell mappings can mean what will fit in a 64 Macrocell ATF1504ASL, might need a 128 Macrocell coolrunner ( or might not, depends on how close to the ceiling you are ). The good news is the tools are improving (in spite of what you might read in c.a.f :) and design migration is not hugely-difficult. Even if the precise pinout is not cloned, a PCB respin for the SAME PACKAGE is a valid engineering choice - more of a speed-bump than a brick-wall. All this 'keeps the vendors honest' in relative prices/performance, and certainly up until the PCB is released to production, there is leverage possible on all supplier candidates. ie they may not be '100% pin/design compatible', but they ARE '100% bid compatible' :) -jgArticle: 57770
Replace_latter8717_with_manorsway wrote:
> remember log division from schoool, now try that in base 2!
Yes.
And then develop a hardware design that can do that...
When this is done, it's a small step to describe it in VHDL.
Regards,
Mario
>
> "Ketan" <ketone007sa@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:cf47f3cc.0307042130.1eec1888@posting.google.com...
>> hello there
>> i am relatively new to VHDL..this might sound simple
>> any ideas how to carry out division (floating point) in VHDL??
--
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Digital Force / Mario Trams Mario.Trams@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de
Mario.Trams@wooden-technology.de
Chemnitz University of Technology http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~mtr
Dept. of Computer Science Tel.: (+49) 371 531 1660
Chair of Computer Architecture Fax.: (+49) 371 531 1818
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Article: 57772rickman <spamgoeshere4@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<3F07008B.5E495267@yahoo.com>... > I just tried to install the Quartus II web edition software and I see > that to get a license I need to have an Ethernet card. Does Altera > provide for any other sort of license? It seems silly to require me to > buy and install an Ethernet interface just so they can key a license for > *free* software. Rick -- ask the REAL question: why do they continue bother with the licensing bullshit AT ALL, esp. for FREE SOFTWARE that enables us to design with their chips? Rant rant rant. If I had a nickel for every minute I've wasted on FlexLM, I'd retire. --aArticle: 57773
Andy Peters wrote: > > rickman <spamgoeshere4@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<3F07008B.5E495267@yahoo.com>... > > I just tried to install the Quartus II web edition software and I see > > that to get a license I need to have an Ethernet card. Does Altera > > provide for any other sort of license? It seems silly to require me to > > buy and install an Ethernet interface just so they can key a license for > > *free* software. > > Rick -- ask the REAL question: why do they continue bother with the > licensing bullshit AT ALL, esp. for FREE SOFTWARE that enables us to > design with their chips? Rant rant rant. > > If I had a nickel for every minute I've wasted on FlexLM, I'd retire. I would very much like to rant until they dropped the licencing on the free tools. But I feel I rant a bit too much already and I don't want to alienate anyone (or anyone more than I have). I know that sometimes I push buttons with Peter and Austin. I hope they don't mind too much. I remember telling the Orcad people what I thought of their new licensing scheme when they were bought by some larger, high end player. The new owners felt that Orcad should have high end licensing and I let them know that I would not be installing the upgrade because of it. I belive it would have required me to either buy an Ethernet card or to use a dongle. These days I am not willing to do either to use software. But a hard drive key is within my comfort zone. I know that if I replace my hard drive I can set my own serial number and be back on the air without depending on them. Orcad is one company I will *never* depend on for anything. -- Rick "rickman" Collins rick.collins@XYarius.com Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY removed. Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company Specializing in DSP and FPGA design URL http://www.arius.com 4 King Ave 301-682-7772 Voice Frederick, MD 21701-3110 301-682-7666 FAXArticle: 57774
My current favorite is Mentor; their "perpetual" license must be renewed every 5 years. (This is for their "perpetual" leonardo license.) > > I would very much like to rant until they dropped the licencing on the > free tools. But I feel I rant a bit too much already and I don't want > to alienate anyone (or anyone more than I have). I know that sometimes > I push buttons with Peter and Austin. I hope they don't mind too much. > > > Rick "rickman" Collins >
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