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DC CAD (tm)
Electronic Board Design
Shareware Copy
Release 1.0
-----------------------------
DC SOFTWARE (tm)
5276 HOLLISTER AVE. SUITE 405
SANTA BARBARA, CA 93111
Tel: 805-964-0473
Fax: 805-683-7690
BBS: 805-964-2833
-----------------------------
THANK-YOU
---------
Thank you for downloading DC CAD, the third in a series of quality
products scheduled for release this year. We hope you enjoy this
shareware version, and that you will register your copy of DC CAD which
will entitle you to our complete package including a published User's
Manual and more.
REGISTRATION
------------
To register DC CAD, send $34 (Over 50% Discount off Retail Price) to DC
SOFTWARE at the above address. California residents please add sales
tax. You can also order using MasterCard or Visa by calling our order
line at 805-964-0473. Dealer and OEM inquiries are welcome.
Users who register DC CAD will receive, by return mail, the registered
version of the program and the published User's Manual as well.
------------
Users Manual
------------
Table of Contents
_________________
Section-1 An Overview
Section-2 Getting Started
Section-3 Orientation
Section-4 The Drawing Tools
Section-5 The Menus
Section-6 Setting Options
Section-7 Printing
Section-8 Custom Printer Installation
Section-9 Designing ICONS
Section-10 Tricks and Techniques
1-1
Overview
--------
DC CAD combines the ease and versatility of a pixel-oriented
drawing program with the specialized tools and funtions of a CAD
program to give you an uncommon level of control in creating
schematics and double-side board layouts.
Developed originally for our own programers in-house use, DC CAD was
designed to produce clear, dark, board images on his quite ordinary
dot-matrix printers. Of primary concern was the degree of control of
the printed image and the speed at which the display screen updates
when moving around a large drawing.
You will find that DC CAD has a very good "pencil & paper" feel
to it. The mouse response is adjustable to give exactly the feel you
like, as this varies greatly from one individual to another. There
is nothing hidded or ambiguous about the drawings you make. This is
very much a "what-you-see" is " what-you-get" program.
Because it was designed to be used by other engineers, we incor-
porated a printer setup screen to allow users to configure the
program to their own printers with a great deal of versatility. The
printer setup screen may also be used to "diddle" the existing
printer configurations at the user's discretion.
Please feel free to call or write with your comments or suggestions.
Enhancements to the program are based largely on requests made to us.
2-1
Getting Started
---------------
There is no installation required for this program, just type "DCCAD"
at the command prompt. This will run DC CAD in the default EGA
mode (640 x 350 color). The MENUS section tells you how to switch to
VGA (640 x 480) mode and make this the default mode when the program
starts.
When you see the main drawing screen displayed, click the mouse
button to clear the copyright notice and begin running the program.
We suggest that you have the program running as you go through
this manual. Try things out as you go. You will probably have
the basic operation down in about an hour.
Before we go further, lets define some of the terms used in
this manual. Some of these will be familliar to you if you have
used other graphics programs. Others are particular to this
program alone.
2-2
MIDDLE BUTTON: If your mouse has only two buttons, use the SPACE
BAR any time the program calls for the middle
button.
CURSOR: The thing that moves around on the screen as you
move the mouse. The size and shape of the cursor
will depend on where you are and what you are doing.
DRAWING PLANES: The FRONT and REAR drawings that are superimposed on
the screen when doing double-sided board layouts
act independantly of each other - as if they were
two separate drawings. This can be visualized as
being on different 'planes'.
ICON: This is a 'picture' of something - such as a NAND
gate, or an IC pad. It is placed onto the drawing
as a whole - eliminating the need to draw one 'by
hand' each time it is needed.
MENU: The words at the top of the screen are the menus.
A menu is a list of functions, files, or other
items from which to choose. Menus are accessed by
placing the cursor on the menu heading, holding
down one of the mouse buttons while moving down to
the desired selection, and releasing the button.
CLICKING: Pushing a mouse button and releasing it immediately.
DRAGGING: Pushing a mouse button, holding it down while
moving the mouse, and releasing it at the new
location.
PIXEL: The pixel is the ATOM of the graphics universe.
It is the smallest little color dot that your
graphics board can produce and the smallest little
black dot that your printer can print.
HOT SPOT: When referring to a cursor, the hot-spot is the
place on the cursor where it acts. The hot-spot
of the arrow cursor(used to access controls and
menus) is at its point. The hot-spot of the
line-drawing (cross) cursor is at its center.
The hot-spot of an icon tells where to place it in
the drawing relative to the cursor's hot-spot.
3-1
Orientation
-----------
The drawing tool controls are on the left side of the screen.
You activate one of them by clicking the arrow cursor on it. Some
of these will automatically deactivate the previously active
one. Others act independently. The activated control will be
highlighted.
The LINEWIDTH control is the short horizontal line just below
the drawing tool controls. Clicking on this will make it wider
(the LEFT button) or narrower (the RIGHT button).
The next item on our tour of the left side of your screen is
the FONT control. Here you see the letters "ABC" displayed in the
currently selected font. Like the linewidth control, this is both
a control and an indicator. Click any button on these letters to
select from the available fonts.
At the bottom of the screen you MAY see the currently selected
icon (only if you have loaded an icon file and selected one).
Clicking directly on this icon flips and rotates it through all 8
possible orientations. Depending on the type of symmetry the icon
has, some of these may be identical, or look identical, but be
aware of where the hot-spot is located.
At the top of the screen are the MENUS which look like this
when you first run the program -
<D-File> <I-File> <icon> Edit Special Help x: 123 y: 456
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The first five are your typical "pull-down" menus:
Point to the menu title with the arrow cursor.
Push any button and hold it down.
(The menu selections will be displayed below the menu title)
While holding the button down, move to the desired selection.
(The selections are highlighted as you move across them)
Release the button.
The Help menu does not require any "pulling down". Just click on the
word HELP and a window will appear in the middle of the screen with
information related to the last tool, control, menu, or other
parameter you have last accessed.
3-2
Many help windows have highlighted words that will send you directly to
other help windows. Click directly on the highlighted words for
additional help. Clicking anywhere else will clear the help window.
The x and y coordinate values at the far right end of the menu bar
indicate your exact position in the drawing. Moving the cursor to
point directly to these numbers will cause them to display the
current display mode of the coordinates. Clicking on them will cycle
the display mode thru PIXEL, PRINT, and BOARD.
4-1
This is the LINE drawing tool.
Lines are drawn vertically, horizontally, or diagonally at 45
degrees. The line drawing cursor is sized to show the currently
selected linewidth (see LINEWIDTH control).
Position the cursor to the starting position.
The cursor should be stationary. If it is in motion when the
button is pressed, the program will not be sure of exactly
where you want to start and will refuse to draw the line.
Hold down the LEFT button to draw a line that terminates
when it encounters an object on the screen.
- or -
Hold down the RIGHT button to draw a line that does not
terminate when it encounters an object on the screen.
Move the cursor to the ending position.
Release the button.
Like the other line manipulation tools, the LINE drawing tool
analyzes data on the screen to do its job. Having the line
terminate when it encounters an IC pad, for instance, allows you
to position the cursor in the middle of the pad without
overwriting the 'hole'. Additionally, wide lines will 'form
around' the edjes of rounded objects or diagonal lines encountered.
For drawing lines on schematics, where you DO want the line to go
completely from end to end, use the RIGHT button. This is useful
when the line you draw will be crossing other lines in your drawing.
4-2
This is the BOX drawing tool.
Boxes are drawn using the current LINEWIDTH. The box drawing
cursor is sized to show the currently selected linewidth. (see
LINEWIDTH control)
Position the cursor to the starting position (one corner).
Hold down the LEFT button to draw a NORMAL box.
- or -
Hold down the RIGHT button to draw a line REVERSAL box.
Move the cursor to the ending position (diagonally opposite
corner).
Release the button.
Boxes are used mostly in schematics for drawing IC's other than
simple gates and inverters. The boxes you draw may be 'resized'
at a later time by using the LINE MOVING (rubber banding) tool.
The REVERSAL mode is a useful way to erase an existing box.
4-3
This is the ERASER.
The eraser ignores the state of the GRID-TOGGLE and lets you
move freely around the screen.
The eraser is ACTIVE while any button is held down.
The eraser removes exactly what is under it when it is active.
Note: The eraser employs controlled mouse ballistics to
avoid 'skipping' over parts of the screen.
LEFT button erases only on current plane (FRONT or REAR)
RIGHT button erases on both planes
To erase large areas of the screen use the OUTLINE tool. To erase
very small areas (or single pixels) use the PENCIL tool in the
expanded screen mode.
4-4
This is the TEXT tool.
The TEXT tool is used to place text (in the currently selected
font) anywhere on the screen in any one of four directions. The
TEXT tool cursor is a small triangle pointing in the direction the
text will be written.
Click the RIGHT button to select the desired direction.
Position the text tool cursor to the spot on the screen where
you want to begin writing text.
Click the LEFT button to ACTIVATE the text writing mode - an
underscore will appear one pixel past the point of the triangle.
Type text directly onto the screen. The full ASCII character
set is supported in all font sizes, but the smallest font size
is upper-case only for the characters A to Z. There are two
special cases.
The ENTER key moves you back to the original left margin TWO
grid spacings down ("down" is relative to what direction you
are writing in). The reason for this double spacing becomes
obvious when you are putting both LEGENDS on lines coming
from IC's and PIN NUMBERS inside the IC (or vice-versa). One
needs to be inserted in between the lines and one needs to be
lined up with the end of the lines.
The BACKSPACE key moves you back one character at a time and
restores anything you wrote text over all the way back to
where you started.
Note: When writing text on the REAR plane, all text is
written in a mirror-image fashon. When the REAR plane is
printed, it is reversed left to right and the text will
then be correct on the printout - as well as on the bottom
side of your etched circuit board.
There is a limit of 200 characters at a time in this mode.
Do not try to use this program as a word processor.
4-5
This is the OUTLINE tool.
The OUTLINE tool is used to move or copy rectangular regions of your
drawing. It can copy from one place in your drawing to another, from
one plane to the other, or from one drawing file to another. The
Edit menu provides several additional functions for the outline tool.
The first step is to create the outline of the region. This is
always done with the following steps.
1. Position the cursor to one corner of the region.
2. Hold down the LEFT button to outline on the currently
active plane (FRONT or REAR), or hold down the RIGHT
button to make the outline active on both planes.
3. Move to the corner diagonally opposite.
4. Release the button - you should now see it outlined.
If the outline is not where you want it, position the cursor
outside of the outline and click any button to remove the outline.
Then go back to step 1.
Now that you have the outline, you have several choices of
what to do with the image inside of it ("inside of it" includes
the outline itself).
You can copy or move the image anywhere on the screen as follows...
5. Move the cursor inside the outline.
6. Hold down the LEFT button to move the region.
- or -
Hold down the RIGHT button to copy the region.
7. Move the cursor to the destination - the outline box will
follow your cursor movements.
8. Release the button to place the image.
If the image is not exactly where you intended, go back to step 5.
When you have the image just where you want it, position the
cursor outside of the outline and click any button.
- or -
4-6
You may move or copy the outlined region to somewhere off-screen
in the drawing, to the other drawing plane (in LAYOUT mode), or to
another file.
Move the cursor up to the EDIT menu and select either CUT or COPY.
Switch planes, drawings, move to another section of the drawing,
or any combination of these.
Move the cursor back up to the EDIT menu and select PASTE.
You can now proceed as in step 5 to position the image anywhere on
the screen.
Other Edit menu options will FILL the region, FLIP the region
horizontally or vertically, ROTATE the region left or right, or
INVERT the image in the outlined region. Since these operations are
used less frequently, they have not been optimized for speed.
NOTE: The size of the area you can outline is determined by the
amount of free memory available after the program loads.
4-7
This is the ICON tool.
This tool is used to place ready-made images into your drawing.
To use it, first select an ICON FILE by using the menu at the top
of the screen. Then select an ICON by name from the menu. The
icon you select will be displayed in the lower left corner of the
screen.
The icon displayed will be shown in the orientation in which it
was originally created. Moving the cursor to point to the icon
and clicking any button will re-orient it through a series of
eight possible orientations.
Superimposed on the icon are the "crosshairs" that define the
"hot-spot" for that particular icon. This indicates exactly how
the icon will be positioned on the drawing relative to the grid.
This tool works differently in the SCHEMATIC and LAYOUT modes.
In the SCHEMATIC mode -
Click the LEFT button to write the icon normally.
Click the RIGHT button to write the icon in REVERSAL mode.
In the LAYOUT mode -
Click the LEFT button to place the icon on the current plane.
Click the RIGHT button to place the icon in both planes.
Click the MIDDLE button to erase the icon on both planes.
4-8
This is the PAGE mover.
This tool is used to move around on the drawing. The amount of
the drawing that can be viewed at any time depends on the vertical
and horizontal size of your graphics screen display. Rulers on
the bottom and right side of the screen indicated which part of
the drawing you are currently viewing. To use the page mover -
Position the cursor anywhere on the drawing.
Hold down the LEFT button and move the cursor to the desired
location.
Release the button.
The page mover acts as if you were physically grabbing hold of
some area of the drawing and dragging it to a new location.
Whatever the cursor was pointing to will wind up approximately
under the cursor at its new location. The final location will
not usually be exactly where the cursor is. This is because the
screen is always shifted in whole byte (8 pixel) increments in the
left-right direction. The speed at which the screen "replots" when
moving the page is enhanced by restricting movement to whole byte
increments.
This tool can also be used to reposition the drawing itself, that is,
to move the drawing relative the drawing area. To do this, use the
RIGHT button.
Moving the drawing itself is a slower operation, much slower, but
this is not something you normally need to do very often. Also, the
program checks to make sure that none of the drawing will be lost
(clipped) in doing the move operation. Sould you accidentally use
the wrong button, you may abort the operation by hitting any key on
the keyboard while the program is checking the boundries of your
drawing. Once it starts moveing the drawing, the operation cannot be
aborted. But not to worry, none of your drawing will be lost in
either case - you can always move it back.
4-9
This is the LINE-MOVER (rubber banding) tool.
To use the LINE-MOVER you must have the LINEWIDTH set to match the
width of the line you want to move. This tool uses artificial
intelligence techniques to determine how to move the line and how
to adjust other lines that it connects to. It's a fun tool to
use.
Position the cursor directly and exactly on the line to be
moved. It can be a vertical or horizontal line but not a
diagonal one. This positioning is much easier if you
have the GRID activated.
Hold down the LEFT button to activate the line-mover. The
cursor will now display a double headed arrow pointing
either left and right, or up and down as appropriate.
Move the cursor to the target position.
Release the button.
If the LINE mover detects a collision at the new position, a beep
sounds and the line is not moved. You may override the collision
detection and force the move by using the RIGHT button instead.
There is no collision detection performed on the lines that connect
to the one you are moving (we're working on it!). If these collide
with other lines or pads, you should get no know the UNDO tool.
4-10
This is the LINE-KILL tool.
As with the line-mover, be sure you have the proper LINEWIDTH
selected. Working with the GRID active will make things easier.
The LINE-KILL tool will remove either single lines (vertical or
horizontal but not diagonal), or follow a trace in both
directions, around corners, erasing until it encounters something
that doesn't look "like a line". Use it as follows -
Position the cursor on a vertical or horizontal line.
Click the LEFT button to erase only this line.
- or -
Click the RIGHT button to follow the line around and
erase all of it as it goes.
Note: This tool will stop when it encounters a 'T' intersection
or a diagonal line or anything else that doesn't "look
like a line".
This tool is smart about crossing other lines and not
putting holes in the lines that it crosses.
4-11
This is the PENCIL.
This tool is not affected by the state of the grid-toggle and you can
always position it anywhere on the screen. It writes or erases
single dots on the screen. The main use of this tool is in its
ability to "blow up" part of the drawing to allow easy pixel-by-pixel
modifications to your drawing.
Position the pencil cursor anywhere on the screen. The "hot spot"
of the pencil is exactly at the juntion of the vertical and
horizontal lines at its point.
Clicking the LEFT button writes a dot. (Holding down the LEFT
button and dragging the pencil around makes lots of dots.)
Clicking the RIGHT button erases a dot.
Clicking the MIDDLE button expands the screen image at that
point.
The expanded image fills the screen with little squares that can
be turned on and off using the PENCIL. This is quite handy for
cleaning up those little blotches and doing very fine image
editing.
Click the LEFT button to make a square, or hold down the
button to make them as you move around.
Click the RIGHT button to erase a square, or hold down the
button to erase them as you move.
Click the MIDDLE button to return to the full screen image.
In either the normal or expanded mode, this tool employes controlled
mouse ballistics to prevent skipping over points. If you drag the
mouse around wildly, it may act slightly strange in interpolating the
intermediate mouse positions.
4-12
This is the FLOOD tool.
Unlike the FILL function on the Edit menu, the FLOOD tool fills in a
selected area without touching pads or traces. This leaves an area
of copper on the circuit board to act as shielding or heat-sinking or
just saves etchant when making the board.
This tool uses the current LINEWIDTH setting to determine how close
it can get to pads and traces when flooding. So set the linewidth
before using it.
To use this tool -
Outline the region to be flooded the same way as when using the
OUTLINE tool.
Position the cursor to a blank spot inside the outlined region.
Click the LEFT button to flood only the area CONTINUOUS with the
cursor location. That is, given the flooding tolerance (set by
the linewidth), and starting from the cursor location, and given
the clearance between pads and such in the area, what locations
can it "ooze to".
Click the RIGHT button to flood all areas inside the region
whether they are continuous or not.
Click the MIDDLE button (or spacebar) with the cursor pointing to
and already flooded region to deflood it.
4-13
This is the UNDO tool.
Do to the PIXEL nature of this program, an interesting type of undo
function becomes possible. The UNDO tool is a small window that lets
you see what the drawing was like before recent changes were made.
It is not limited the the last operation done. Some information on
how this program stores drawings will be helpful here.
All of the drawing tools act directly on the video memory. This
memory is what you see on your monitor. When certain operations
(such as menus, help windows, or the page mover) are used, the
program copies the video screen data to RAM memory, does the
operation, and then restores the video information from RAM memory.
So the data stored in RAM memory is a copy of what was on the screen
the last time one of these operations was performed.
The UNDO tool gives you a window into this memory image. As you move
it around, you see what the corresponding image looked like. Holding
down a button as you move around "pulls up" the memory image in that
area and puts it back on the screen.
Note: The UNDO tool works on only one plane at a time. If you need
to undo data on both planes, use the PLANE toggle to switch to
the other plane and continue undoing there.
4-14
This is the PLANE TOGGLE.
This tool is active only in the LAYOUT mode (when working on a
double-sided board layout). This tool switches you from the FRONT
drawing plane to the REAR drawing plane. Most other tools work only
on the currently selected plane. If you have activated the OVERLAY
option on the Special menu, only the active plane will be displayed.
Note: The action of the PLANE TOGGLE is not the same as the SWAP
function on the SPECIAL menu. The SWAP function actually
swaps the drawing data from the front and rear planes -
the PLANE TOGGLE selects which plane is ACTIVE and
therefore accessible to the other drawing tools.
4-15
This is the GRID-TOGGLE tool.
This tool makes the currently selected grid active or inactive.
Many of the drawing tools are affected by the GRID. Some, such as
the pencil and eraser, are not. Clicking on this tool toggles the
grid on and off. The actual grid spacing is selected on the
OPTIONS display screen which is on the SPECIAL menu.
Setting the LINEWIDTH
---------------------
The linewidth is set by simply clicking the arrow cursor on the
short horizontal line displayed just below the drawing tools.
This is both the line width indicator and the linewidth control.
Click the LEFT button here to increase the linewidth.
Click the RIGHT button here to decrease the linewidth.
Note: The minimum linewidth is 1 - the maximum linewidth is 10.
The LINE and BOX drawing cursors are automatically sized
to the current linewidth, and the line-moving and
line-killing tools use this information to differentiate
lines (traces) from other things on the drawing. The
FLOOD tool uses this to set the clearance when flooding.
5-1
The MENUS
----------
<D-File>
This is the drawing file menu. When you access this menu, you
will see all of the drawing files in your directory listed along
with the two special options, <save-as> and <clear>.
Selecting <save-as> causes a "pop-up" window to appear on the
screen. Enter just the base filename here - without the extent.
(i.e. DRAWING2 not DRAWING2.EC). This will create a new file or
overwrite an existing file with the current drawing.
Selecting <clear> will erase the entire drawing, but does not
affect the drawing file on the disk (if one had been previously
loaded). Use this funtion to discard all changes made since you
loaded your last file.
Selecting a file from the list begins a rather involved process -
1 - The currently active file (the last one loaded) is written
to the disk along with:
a) The GRID setting
b) The drawing type (single or double sided)
c) The LINEWIDTH setting
d) The name of the current ICON file.
e) The width and height of the drawing
2 - If any icon has been edited or a new icon added to the
list, the current icon file will be written to the disk
(overwriting the existing one).
3 - The selected drawing file will be loaded along with all
the settings shown in #1 above.
4 - The icon file that was active when this file was last
saved will be loaded.
5 - The new drawing and icon file names will appear as menu
titles at the top of the screen.
This makes switching between files very convenient. If you do not
want to save changes made to the current drawing before loading
another, use <clear> before selecting a new file to load.
If the file you load is the same one that you currently have
loaded, the entire process (steps 1 to 5) will be performed
causing a "Save" of the current file to the disk.
5-2
<I-File>
This is the ICON file menu. You may use this function at any time
to load an icon file whether or not a drawing file has been
loaded. If you already have an icon file loaded and pick a new
one, and any changes have been made to the current icons, the
current file will be written to disk before the new one is loaded.
Two special options appear on this menu - <save as> and <new>.
<save as> Creates a new icon file containing the icons that you
presently have loaded. You will be prompted for a
filename. Give just the base name of the file.
<new> Creats an new, empty, icon file. Be sure to put at
least 2 new icons in this file before saving it or
switching files. (yes - its a bug)
The name of the current icon file will be shown in the menu bar at
the top of the screen.
<icon>
Once an icon file has been loaded, the name of the currently
selectd icon will appear in this position in the menu bar. Icons
are picked by name from this menu. The icon itself is displayed
in the lower left hand corner of the screen.
5-3
EDIT
The edit menu contains the following functions:
COPY: Grabs a copy of the currently OUTLINED portion of the
drawing.
CUT: Works like COPY but then erases the outlined portion.
PASTE: Places a previously captured portion back into the
drawing.
FILL: Does a solid fill of the outlined portion.
INVERT: Reverses the black-white sense of the outlined portion.
FLIP-H: Reverses the image left to right.
FLIP-V: Reverses the image top to bottom.
ROTATE-R: Rotates 90 degrees to the right.
ROTATE-L: Rotates 90 degrees to the left.
EDIT ICON: Allows you to modify the pixel pattern, hot-spot,
and name of the currently displayed icon.
NEW ICON: Allows you to create a new icon.
(see detailed section on editing and creating icons)
SPECIAL
This menu has the following funtions:
OPTIONS: Sends you to the options setup screen where you
may change -
The GRID setting
The file type (drawing or layout)
The file packing method
The printing options
The mouse response
The video mode and settings
The drawing type, height and width
The color assignments
Options that you set will be saved when you exit
the program and still be in effect the next time
you run it.
(see detailed description under section on OPTIONS)
5-4
PRINTER: Sends you to the printer selection screen to
choose a new printer and gives you access to the
highly versatile PRINTER CONFIGURATION SCREEN. If
you select a new printer, the PRINTERS file on the
disk is immediately updated. Even if you exit the
program, this same printer will still be selected
the next time you run the program.
PRINT: Choosing this causes printing to begin immediately. You
may stop printing by hitting any key. When printing a
double sided drawing, the currently active drawing plane
is printed. If the REAR plane is active, it will be
printed REVERSED (mirror-imaged left to right).
SWAP: This actually swaps the FRONT and REAR drawing data.
OVERLAY: This function causes only the ACTIVE drawing plane to be
displayed on the screen. On a high density drawing, it
can be confusing to see both planes at once. Once this
function is activated, the PLANE toggle will not only
switch which plane is active, but only the active plane
will be displayed.
Choosing this function a second time will de-activate it.
CLEAR: The clears the ACTIVE drawing plane only. Reasons for
doing this are covered in the tricks and techniques section.
DONE/SAVE: This will save the current DRAWING file, the
currently selected OPTIONS, and the current ICON
file (if it has been modified).
QUIT: This saves only the options - it abandons everything else
and exits the program.
There is also an EMERGENCY EXIT to the program - the F9 function key.
Sould something go really wrong and your screen blanks out do to
video failure, or the hostile action of some TSR program, and the
program is still running, this will cause the current drawing to be
saved under the name ABORT.EC and your icon file (if it has been
modified) under the name ABORT.ECI without affecting the original
files.
6-1
Setting Options
---------------
Choose OPTIONS from the SPECIAL menu to access the options screen.
The options screen gives you access to many of the settings that you
may only need to change occasionally as compared to the tools and
menus that you have direct access to from the main drawing screen.
Changes that you make on the options screen become active immediately
but are not saved to disk until you exit the program. Some of these
options are also saved in your drawing files when you switch files.
To modify an option, point the cursor at the appropriate box and
click any button. Some of these boxes toggle on and off, some turn
off other options, and some take data from the keyboard.
Clicking on any of these will make HELP available for that box.
After clicking on the box, move up to the menu bar and click on Help.
When modifying those that take keyboard data, Click on the box,
use the backspace key to remove the old data, type in the new
data, then hit ENTER to exit the box and re-activate the cursor.
No error checking is done on some of these boxes.
Taken one at a time, this is what each of them does:
GRID:
Sets the grid spacing for the drawing. Values of 2 thru 60
are allowed. Choosing the right grid spacing for your
application makes drawings and layouts much easier. Remember,
this only sets the grid spacing - use the GRID TOGGLE control
on the main drawing screen to turn the grid on and off. Also,
when you load a file, the grid setting that was chosen when
the file was last saved will automatically be loaded.
SHOW GRID:
This box toggles on and off. In the LAYOUT mode only, a grid of
dots will be displayed (using the BOARDER color) on the main
drawing screen. These dots are displayed only on even grid
positions.
PACKING:
This is a toggle, it clicks on and off. When this option is
enabled, files are compressed both vertically and horizontally.
Because additional processing time is needed for the extra file
compression, you may want this option disabled when switching
between several files. Board layouts tend to compress more
than schematics. This option controls only the WRITING of
files, all files will automatically read in properly.
PRINT WIDTH:
This sets the carriage width of your printer (in inches).
It tells the program not to extend the print image past that
point. Values of 1 to 15 are allowed here.
6-2
BIDIR:
This is a toggle, it clicks on and off. It activates
bidirectional printing. Although this makes printouts faster,
on many printers some skewing of the forward and reverse
printed dots will make the printout untidy.
DRAFT:
This is a toggle, it clicks on and off. It causes the printer
to print without overlapping. This is handy to make a faster
printout of your entire drawing to see the general size and
shape of things.
VERTICAL:
This is a toggle. When it is active, the direction of
printing is rotated 90 degrees.
NEGATIVE:
Causes a black-white reversal of the printout.
MOUSE:
This is the mouse response control. All mouse systems are not
alike - neither are all mouse users. Values of 1 to 99 are
allowed here. Use lower values to make the cursor move
faster relative to the mouse. On some installations, making
the cursor response too fast will make some pixels on the
screen inaccessible.
THRESHOLD:
This sets the mouse double-speed threshold. Values of 1 to 99
are allowed and higher values mean that you must move the
mouse faster to get the double speed effect.
(empty box):
This activates one of the video modes, it de-activates the
other. You may switch video modes while working on a drawing
with no ill effect. The new video mode becomes active when
you return to the main drawing screen.
MODE:
This is the actual video mode (in decimal) sent to your video
controller board. The standard EGA (16) and VGA (18) values
are loaded here by default the first time you run the program.
When setting up a new video mode, consult you video controller
manual for the proper code (in decimal) to activate that mode.
There are no standards for these extended modes, or put
another way, there are too many standards.
HORIZ:
This number is the horizontal resolution that goes with the
video mode. The highest value that works appears to be 800.
6-3
VERT:
Likewise, this is the corresponding vertical resolution.
Numbers up to 600 seem to work here. Video cards that provide
modes in exess of 600 by 800 do not conform to the standard
memory mapping of bitplanes in 64k byte pages or less in these
modes and will not work in these modes.
SCHEMATIC:
These boxes select height and width for schematic drawings.
Since schematics use only a single drawing plane, the sizes are
about twice as large as those for double sided layouts. The
exact proportions of these are based on "magic numbers" that make
access to large memory arrays very fast. If the program THINKS
that a drawing is present, it will refuse to allow you to change
the size or type of drawing. Go back to the main drawing screen
and select <clear> from the D-File menu if you get a beep here.
LAYOUT:
These work just like the schematic selections above. You need to
select the size you want before begining a drawing.
The remaining boxes set the colors used in the program. All 64
of the EGA colors are available and all colors used in the
program are accessible. The LEFT button advances the color
number and the RIGHT button does the reverse. The MIDDLE button
sets it to zero (black). These controls "wrap around" at the
ends.
The colors that these boxes represent are as follows:
SCHEM color of drawing for schematics
FRONT color of FRONT plane in LAYOUT mode
REAR color of REAR plane in LAYOUT mode
INTER color of intersections of FRONT and REAR planes
BACKGROUND background color throughout program
BOARDER color of boarder lines, rulers, and inactive tools
CURSOR cursor color
HILITE highlighting color used for options, menues,
and help windows
MENU color for menu bar, coordinates, and ruler legends
The remaining boxes are labeled PALETTE 1 thru 7. They select all of
the remaining colors used in the program. Of special interest are
numbers 1 thru 4. These are used by the icon editor and should all
be kept clearly distinct from each other.
7-1
Printing
--------
This program comes "ready to run" on an IBM Proprinter (or
compatible) or HP LaserJet. If your printer is configured to emulate
this standard and you have it connected to the standard printer port
(LPT1), you are ready to print. The default setting is for the
Proprinter.
Select PRINT from the SPECIAL menu and printing will begin. You may
hit any key to abort printing.
The type of printout that you get will depend on the printer settings
on the OPTIONS screen. If you are working on a double-sided
drawing, the ACTIVE drawing plane will be printed. Additionally, if
you are printing the REAR drawing plane, it will be printed reversed
(mirror image).
- - - - - - - - - - - -
If your printer is not IBM compatible, choose PRINTER from the
SPECIAL menu. The printer menu screen will be displayed. See if
your printer is listed here. If so, click on the appropriate box
and then click on the SAVE box. If your printer is not listed
here, you will need to do a custom printer installation. Proceed
to the next section to do the installation.
Once you have chosen or installed a printer, choose PRINT from the
SPECIAL menu to begin printing.
8-1
Custom Printer Installation
---------------------------
This screen gives you real 'nuts and bolts' access to how the
program utilizes the printer. It was incorporated primarily to
allow users to install printer drivers for printers that are not
IBM Proprinter compatible. We will be expanding this list
ourselves as time goes by. You will need to know all of the
appropriate printer codes (see your printer manual) to do a custom
installation.
To get to the printer installation screen.
1. Select PRINTER from the SPECIAL menu.
2. Select a printer from the PRINTER list.
3. Click on the box marked MODIFY.
(the currently selected printer values will be displayed)
Let's go over these parameters one at a time. As with the OPTIONS
screen, click on a box to access it. If it is a box requiring
keyboard input, use the backspace key to remove the old data, type
in the new data, and hit the ENTER key to exit the box. All
numbers entered in boxes will be assumed to be in decimal unless
otherwise indicated (see notes below). If nothing is entered in a
box - that particular function will not work, but no other harm
will be done. Use spaces to separate codes in a box.
PRINTER:
Enter a name for the printer here. Anything that fits in the
box is fine.
UNIDIRECTIONAL:
Enter the code sequence that puts your printer in unidirectional
printing mode. This code sequence is sent out to the printer
each time you begin a printout.
For a laser printer, put the print codes here to set the printer
in 'Portriat' mode.
BIDIRECTIONAL:
As in the function above, enter the code sequence here for
bidirectional printing.
For a laser printer, put the print codes her to set the printer
in 'Landscape' mode.
8-2
PRINTER PORT:
Select the port for this particular printer. Different
printers may be assigned to different ports if desired. The
port will automatically be selected when the printer is
selected from the printer list. Both serial and parallel
printers are supported. Serial printers are expected to
perform normal CTS (clear to send) hardware handshaking with
the computer.
BAUD RATE:
Only if you have selected a serial (COM) port will this value
be used. It must, of course, match the baud rate that your
printer is set to. Values up to 19,200 may work and
non-standard values are allowed. (i.e. 2000 baud)
INVERT:
Some printers use the print wires in the opposite way from
others. If every 8 dot section of your printout comes out
upside-down, try this option.
PRINT INIT:
This code sequence is sent out to the printer at the beginning
of each printout. Its purpose is to put the printer in the
proper graphics mode and is usually used to set the line
spacing (how far the printer advances vertically when it
receives a linefeed).
PRINT SEQ:
These are the graphics print sequence codes. The program
sends these out at the beginning of each graphic line (8 dots
high) of data. It usually tells the printer how many bytes of
graphic data are to follow and at what density to print them
out. See the NOTES below on using special codes here.
NEXT LINE:
In order to be as general as possible, the actual codes to
perform a carriage return and linefeed are entered here.
These codes are sent out at the end of each graphics line.
The usual values are 13 (return) and 10 (linefeed) for matrix
printers and nothing for laser printers.
H-DPI:
This is the actual number of hoizontal dots/inch that the
above printer codes tell the printer to print. The program
uses this number (in conjuntion with the V-DPI value) to know
which dots to turn on or off as the line is printed. The
result is a printout with the same vertical and horizontal
resolution. This is critical to printing board layouts, where
the vertical and horizontal scales must be the same.
8-3
V-DPI:
Likewise, this is the vertical print resolution. This value
is used in conjuction with H-DPI as mentioned above. It is
usually 72 for matrix printers. This number also affects the
scales on the rulers.
V-STEP:
This number tells the printer how many pixels to move down the
drawing for each graphic line. With this set properly, the
printout will be overlapped so that the effects of printer
wire and printer ribbon variations will be averaged out. The
actual codes to make the printer advance a certain distance
are usually incorporated in the PRINT INIT; this number tells
the PROGRAM how far down to advance in the drawing.
DRAFT INIT / DRAFT SEQ / NEXT LINE / etc.
These are the codes used when the DRAFT mode is selected on
the OPTIONS screen. They work identically to the normal
printing codes above.
Help is availible on any of these options.
NOTES
-----
All numeric values entered in any box are assumed to be in
decimal. Other types of values are supported as follows and may
be combined (with spaces in between) to form a code sequence.
Xdd: An 'X' followed by 2 digits indicates that the
value is in hexadecimal. (i.e. X1B is equivalent
to 27)
'ccc' Ascii characters (upper and lower case) may be put
in single quotes.
* 4 ascii decimal digits representing the length (in
bytes) of the graphic line are inserted.
*L The low order byte of the graphics line length.
*H The high order byte of the graphics line length.
Example: if a box contains the characters:
X1B 'T08' * where the line length (internally calculated by the
program) is 240 bytes produces the code sequence (in hexadecimal):
1B 54 30 38 30 32 34 30
with the same line length, the characters:
27 64 *L *H
produces the code sequence:
1B 40 E0 00
9-1
Designing ICONS
---------------
You will probably want to design some of your own icons. The icon
files provided with the program contain some useful examples for
you to start with. You may add icons to these files, edit or
rename the icons, or create new icon files. There is a limit of
60 icons per file, but you may create any number of files.
The ICON EDITOR works much like the expanded display mode (using the
PENCIL tool). It displays the currently selected icon in a
"blown-up" format and also shows the grid spacing and the hot-spot.
To access the icon editor:
1. Choose either EDIT ICON or NEW ICON from the EDIT menu.
In either case, the current icon will be displayed.
Choosing NEW ICON will cause the icon you create to be
added to the list of icons.
2. Click the LEFT button on any square to turn it on.
Click the RIGHT button on any square to turn it off.
Click the MIDDLE button on any square to place the hot-spot.
Some of the squares on the display are displayed in a different color
and spaced according to your current GRID setting. These are for
visual reference only - they do not control how the icon will be
positioned in the drawing.
The hot-spot controls how the icon will be positioned relative to the
cursor. Remember, the hot-spot of the icon will be placed at the
cursor hot-spot when placed in the drawing which locks it to the grid
if the GRID toggle is active. You may want to examine some of the
icons provided to get an idea of how to place hot-spots.
You may click the CLEAR box to clear the display of the icon.
This does not affect the actual icon if you are editing one.
The DELETE box will remove the ICON from the current list.
When you think you have your icon designed the way you want it,
you have the following options:
SAVE: Stores the modified icon in place of the original.
ABORT: Abandons any changes made.
SAVE AS: Stores the icon and prompts you for a new name.
Any changes made to an icon file are written to disk when you
a) Exit the program with DONE/SAVE.
b) Load in a new icon file directly.
c) Load in a new drawing file that uses a different icon file.
10-1
Tricks and Techniques
---------------------
High density schematics
In order to get the most 'drawing' in your drawing file, we
recommend setting the grid to 5 and using the small "all caps"
font. The 'SCHEMAT' icon file was created to work on this grid
setting.
You should do virtually all of your work with the grid-toggle on
(active) so that icons you put in your drawing will be properly
positioned when connecting them using the LINE drawing tool.
Lines should be spaced 10 pixels apart (2 grid spacings) if you
want to be able to put legends on the lines. The "all caps" font
was designed to fit between lines spaced this way without touching
them.
The TEXT writing tool is designed to automatically double-space
(move down 2 grid spacings) to the next line when you hit ENTER.
In this way you can quickly enter a whole column of legends either
in between the lines or at the ends of the lines.
Since all text is written in REVERSAL mode, one way to erase text
already in the drawing is to simply write over it. This not only
erases the text but restores anything that had been "clobbered" (a
technical term) by having text written over it. This also allows
you to write text in 'white' areas of the drawing.
Layout tricks
Choose your grid spacing, pad sizes, and linewidth, to allow
running traces between pads. Many combinations are possible
depending on how daring you are about trace widths and clearances.
We have had good results using a linewidth of 2 and a 2 pixel
clearance between traces and pads.
Working with the grid engaged makes it much easier to "lock on" to
traces when moving or erasing them. So have the grid-toggle
active when you draw them originally.
Pads are normally positioned 2 grid-spacings apart. This allows
you to run traces in between them without disengaging the grid.
The OUTLINE tool can save you a lot of work in creating pad
patterns for ICs. Place a few pads in a line as described above.
Use the outline tool to duplicate these and extend the line of
pads. When you get the number of pads you want in one line, use
the outline tool to duplicate the whole line to form a DIP
configuration.
On double sided boards you will want the same pads on both sides.
Using the RIGHT button with the ICON tool will put the pad on both
sides at once. Also, using the RIGHT button with the outline tool
will allow you to duplicate and move both FRONT and REAR images at
the same time.
When choosing an icon orientation on a pad icon, be aware of where
the hot-spot is located. For even numbered linewidths, the line
drawing tool extends the excess width of lines DOWN and to the RIGHT.
hot-spot of the pad icon should always be UP and to the LEFT.
Printing from LPT2: etc
If your printer is connected to LPT2 rather than LPT1, access the
custom printer installation screen, click on LPT2 and then click
on SAVE.
In the same way you can use COM1 thru COM4 to drive serial
printers, but in this case you must also set the baud rate to
match your printer. Serial data is sent out as 8 data bits, 1
stop bit, no parity.
Making circuit cards
Once you produce the printout of a circuit card, there are several
options for making the actual board.
Some photocopy machines do reductions and also can duplicate on
special transparent sheets (dont feed ordinary platic sheets
through a photocopier!). The images that result can be used with
positive photo resist kits from electronic supply houses. This
will get you single sided boards "on the cheap". We have even
heard of people makeing a reduction on ordinary copier paper,
soaking it in vegetable oil, and getting enough light transmission
through it to make home brew boards.
Circuit board fabricators usually want negative images already
scaled to size. These can be produced by local photo graphics
companies from your printouts. They will need to know whether you
want positive or negative transparencies and what the reduction
scale is. The cost is about $5 - $10 per transparency.
10-2
Extending the Help file
The file HELP.TXT (used by the program for context sensitive help) is
an ordinary text file. Two special markers are used in the help file
to allow the program to find specific help screens by number. Here
is an example of a section of the file -
@14
The OUTLINE tool moves,copies,and deletes
rectangular areas. Press $120=button on one
corner of the area and $77=drag the mouse to the
opposite corner. An outline will appear.
Now position the cursor inside the outline and
hold down -
LEFT button to move the area
RIGHT button to copy the area
See: $35=Edit $120=(more)
@120
In LAYOUT mode, use LEFT button to select area on
currently active plane. Use RIGHT button to
select area on both planes.
The size of the area you can outline is
determined by the amount of free memory
available.
$14=(back)
The '@14' is used to mark the beginning of this help window. The
program is coded to look for this number if you have just clicked on
the outline tool and then clicked on Help. The help window will
display all of the text until the next '@' is encountered.
The dollar ($) signs are used to tag the highlighted words that vector
you directly to other help windows. An equal (=) sign separates the
vector number from the highlighted word. To create additional help
windows, put a new vector in an existing help window and then create
a text block in the help file marked with that number.
Here are the rules:
49 characters per line maximum
10 lines per window maximum (including blank lines)
Don't use tabs - use spaces only
The order of the help numbers doesn't matter
Help numbers must be from 1 to 199
The end of the help file is marked with '@999'
