Protel for Windows Demonstration Program version 1.02 - Readme text file Copyright Notice This demonstration software (including this textfile) may be copied and passed on to others for non-commercial use, provided the notice of copyright shown below is placed on the label of the copied disk. All other rights are reserved. Copyright (c)1991, Protel Technology Pty Ltd. On-line Help The On-line Help system contains detailed and up-to-date information about this demo version, especially in the areas of the Advanced Place and Advanced Route modules. Some information in the demo booklet which is supplied with this demo is out-dated. About the demo version This demo version of Protel for Windows is identical to the 'full' version with a few key exceptions. You will not be able to Save (or Save as...) files nor make permanent changes to the demo PCB files. The Export selection command is also disabled. The same constraints apply to the library files, you cannot create new library components nor create a new library. Also PCB file and program defaults (ie. display settings, colours ect.) are not saved with the demo version. Contents of the Protel for Windows demonstration program. - Installation cover letter. - 'Introducing Protel for Windows' demo booklet - Protel for Windows demo diskette, version 1.0 (1.2Mb) The following files have been installed onto your destination drive and directory which was supplied during installation. PFW.EXE - Protel for Windows application program PFW.HLP - On-line help file PFW.LIB - component library file PFW.PAD - pad file DEMO1.PCB - small manually placed PCB DEMO2.PCB - large manually placed PCB RDEMO1AP.PCB - small routed autoplaced PCB (using Advanced Place/Route) RDEMO2AP.PCB - large routed autoplaced PCB (using Advanced Place/Route) DEMO1.NET - netlist for small PCBs DEMO2.NET - netlist for large PCBs README.TXT - this text file To use the Advanced autorouter on our Autoplaced demo boards (RDEMO1AP.PCB and RDEMO2AP.PCB), simply use the Unroute-All option from the Auto menu, then setup and run the Advanced autorouter. Autorouting For really difficult boards (eg. DEMO2.PCB or RDEMO2AP.PCB) it is often better not to use the Line Probe router because it isn't able to hug, or share copper as intelligently as the Maze Router. Therefore it is recommended to disable the Line Probe Pass and use the Maze router pass. Please refer to the On-line Help system for more information. Following is a list of features and commands that have been changed, added or not yet implemented in this demonstration version. Modifications to Report Generation When you select either of the something material reports the netlists report or the board statistics report you will be presented with two options. The first is a standard Protel output and the second is the CSV output. CSV stands for Comma Seperated Values. This is a file format that can be loaded into common spreadsheets and databases. It is an ASCII text format. Some spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel will load this format, but will first of all look for text files that use tabs for separation and you have to change one of the options in the program to load files separated with comma values. Set Origin command When you select Edit Set Origin you will have an opportunity to move the cursor and click the mouse button to select a new origin. New Options for the Place Polygon Plane command When you Select Place Polygon Plane a small dialog box will appear and there will be four options available in this. Connect to a net option If you select this option then all of the pads within the polygon that you select will be connected using short tracks to the plane. Remove Dead Copper option If you select this option then the program will remove all sections of a polygon plane that have been placed that are not connected to the net that you have specified using the Connect Net option. Horizontal and Vertical lines options Using these options you can have the place either generate either horizontal lines, vertical lines or both. Place Array When you use the Place Array command the primitives to be repeated must be copied into the clipboard using the Edit Copy or Edit Cut command. Auto Increments in Place Array command. If you select the Auto Increment option in the place array command then pads placed in the clipboard which are placed using the command will have their designators added to by the value of the auto increment option. For example, select one pad, edit it and change it to designator 1 and then copy it into the clipboard. In the place array command set the increment to one, set the number of pads to eight. When you place the array there will be a total of nine pads 1 - 9. If you now select all of the pads that have been placed and copy them into the clipboard, then go to the place array command and set the auto increment to nine change the X axis and the Y axis so that the second row will be placed underneath the hole of the first row, then when you use the place array command the second row will be numbered as 10 - 18. The Export Nets Command If you select Netlist Export Nets the netlist will be generated which is exactly the same as the netlist which was loaded, using the Netlist Load command. This can then be used for DRC or for Auto Placement. Notes on Setting Clearances Using the netlist clearances command you can set the individual clearances for the six types of primitives in Protel for Windows. Please note that these clearances are added together. So for example if you set the clearance of 5 mil on tracks and 8 mils on pads then the clearance between a pad and a track will be 13 mils. Place Dimension Command When you use a Place Dimension Command an arrow is placed at either end of the dimension line. The size of the arrow is determined by the current grid size. The width of the line is to draw the arrows to the current size and the size of the text used to display the dimension is that of the current free text size. The Place Co-ordinate Command The Place Co-ordinate command places a cross on the board. This cross is plus or minus one snap grid size. The size of the text is the current free text size. Pad Holes and Via Holes In the options layers dialogue box there are now two colours and toggles for displaying pad holes and via holes. The holes are drawn in the sizes currently set for the pad or via. The show nets and pad numbers options In the option display dialogue box two new check boxes have been added for showing pad nets and showing pad numbers. If these are turned off then no text will be displayed on top of the pads. Modification to Auto pan If you are using Auto pan for example, while dragging a component, if you hold down the shift key as you hit the side of the window then the screen will shift four times what it would normally, this enables fast panning across the board. Notes on Drill Drawing To place a tool legend for drill drawings listing the symbols, sizes and numbers of holes, place down the special string .LEGEND This is used in the same way that the other special strings in PFW. The orientation, mirroring and size of the tool legend is determined by the orientation, mirroring and size of the .LEGEND string. Modification to move arc and move track When you move an arc or a track now, if there is an arc or another track on the end of it it will also be dragged. For example, if you have 90 corner with an arc forming the corner then if you move the arc, the tracks on either end will be dragged also. Modifications to the manual routing If you use the auto manual routing command the size of the tracks and vias used will be those set in the auto setup router dialogue box. Auto manual and place track commands While using the auto manual route and place tracks commands to place down a series of tracks segments and vias you can back space at any time to step back one track or via that has been placed. Notes on Unrouting You cannot use the unroute command to remove placed tracks from the board. It can only be used to remove tracks that have been routed using the autorouter or auto manual route in PFW. If you load Autotrax boards, they cannot be unrouted, there is not sufficient information in the Autotrax file format to enable this to occur. If you wish to unroute all of the tracks and vias on an Autotrax board, then use the auto unroute all command which will turn all of the connections on the board to unrouted, then use the selection commands to delete all the free primitives. Nets status in edit primitive commands Whenever you edit a track, a via, pad, fill, or arc, if the item is on a net then the net name will be displayed in the caption of the dialogue box. Editing selection status When you edit any of the primitives on PFW the selection status can be modified in the edit dialogue box, ie. change from selected to unselected. This option can also be globally edited using the global edit options. So now for example you can use this command to select all of the vias with a particular size and hole size or to select all of the tracks on a particular layer with a particular track width. The select hole size command The select hole size asks you for a hole size, it then selects all of the vias and pads on the board with that hole size. Auto route/unroute selected components command An additional command has been added to the autoroute menu. When you select autoroute selected components all of the connections that touch any of the components on the board that have been selected will be routed. This enables you to route a particular section of the board where the components can be selected for example with the select inside command. Autotrax Moire and Target pad and aperture types If you load and Autotrax board which has a moire or target pad then these pads will be converted to free primitives of arcs and tracks. If you load an aperture file which has a moire or target aperture set in it then it will be converted to a round aperture. Thermal Reliefs Thermal reliefs on PFW are now drawn with the gaps in the arcs at 45 degree angles rather than horizontal and vertically. Unless you are using 45 degree oriented components this will mean that the gaps are as far as away from each other as possible from one pad to the next. The route priority The route priority which can be set using the edit net command for particular PFW is not implemented in this version of PFW. Use printer fonts The option to use printer fonts in the print command is currently not implemented and will be available in a future version of PFW. rev 17.12.91 (end)