OrCAD price drop

[PlainName]

because at all license levels it's still the exact same product

Pity. A great incentive to upgrade would be the promise of a grown-up schematic editor in Pro.

[asmi]

Pity. A great incentive to upgrade would be the promise of a grown-up schematic editor in Pro.

Capture is a very good product. It needs a bit of love to bring it up to date visually, which - as I understand - is what Cadence is currently working on. But it's very competent even in it's current form. And it's available at all license levels. The only difference between them is in PCB side. And it makes sense, because all progress currently revolves around PCB tech.

[PlainName]

Ignoring the aesthetics, the usability (hence productivity) is... not good. Take zoom: ctl-mousewheeel. Fine, you might think, but that needs two hand and mousewheel zoom is much better. Indeed, that's what PCB does out of the box, but the schematic editor is the opposite. And there's no option to change it.

Then there's the right-click zoom. Where is the right-click unzoom to counter the very VERY tight zoom you just did because you went to pop up the context menu and accidentally gave the mouse a jiggle?

Oh, mouse buttons. Considering Windows mice don't usually come with middle mouse button (it's an awkward mousewheel press on mine), but let's say the price of an extra mouse just for this app is OK. In PCB you click and drag and it does more or less what you expect, but in schematic it pops up that little direction icon and you don't drag - you move in the direction you want to pan and the distance you move sets the speed. Except since it's based on Office code, seemingly, 'fast' is actually pretty slow. It is completely unintuitive for panning like that, particularly compared to to much better PCB.

All of the above could be mitigated by having mousewheel zoom without a modifier - you can easily zoom out/in to pan with one finger. Doesn't have to be the default either, just be able to set it somewhere.

Oh, and the damn thing pops up full screen every time it starts even though the launch link is set to normal. No high DPI support, 8 point text in the NIH menus, ...

[asmi]

Ignoring the aesthetics, the usability (hence productivity) is... not good.

If it's not good for you, use something else. What's the problem? It's not like there is a lack of competitors in this space...
My biggest problem with Orcad is not GUI or aesthetics, but symbol/footprint creation. It's a royal pain in the back with that stupid padstack editor. As someone who frequently evaluates new parts, building footprints gets old very quickly. Standard footprints can be handled by Library Expert, but non-standard footprints (which are becoming more popular due to a need to improve heat transfer) is a massive pain in the ass to make.
But for the actual PCB work it's far ahead of anything else I ever used, including Altium (Altium's "Rules" thing is a total garbage compared to Orcad's Constraints Manager).

[amiq]

Orcad 17.4 for Windows is Win10 64-bit only, I think release 17.2 might have run on Win7,8.
Linux version is RedHat only, might be 64-bit but it's good to see that Linux support.
Pricing is about $3.5k for the USA or £3.5k if you live in the UK, not sure why exchange rates don't come into play but Orcad has been at this sort of price level for quite a while, Orcad 9 cost me £3.5k nearly 20 years ago.

As I have said 17.40 (and all service packs) will work on Win 7.

[benwis]

I recently got Orcad Capture CIS/CIP/Pspice and PCB Designer Professional for 1.4kUSD. Capture definitely needs some love in the usability/productivity area but I'm very happy so far. I think I got a pretty good deal out of them

Padstack creation is such a bore though, I try to pull parts off Ultra Librarian or SnapEDA and verify. Does anyone know good resources for a starter library, bonus points if it includes the database aspect?

[mstevens]

I recently got Orcad Capture CIS/CIP/Pspice and PCB Designer Professional for 1.4kUSD. Capture definitely needs some love in the usability/productivity area but I'm very happy so far. I think I got a pretty good deal out of them

Padstack creation is such a bore though, I try to pull parts off Ultra Librarian or SnapEDA and verify. Does anyone know good resources for a starter library, bonus points if it includes the database aspect?

I got a very similar deal and practically begged people here to give EMA Design a call and get a copy. There is nothing out there that competes with this package at this price. NOTHING.

[Alex Eisenhut]

You can create padstacks in batch mode.

Run pad_designer with the -s option from the command line with your batch file.

The batch file is in the usual Cadence format of commands with parameters.

So use something old and crunky like AWK (love it) to create the script file and you can create entire families of padstacks on the fly.

I did this over ten years ago so I don't have details anymore.

[Pitrsek]

I recently got Orcad Capture CIS/CIP/Pspice and PCB Designer Professional for 1.4kUSD.

Regular commercial commercial perpetual license ?

[PlainName]

Capture definitely needs some love in the usability/productivity area but I'm very happy so far.

Not just capture. Still on the mouse, in PCB you drag the window instead of the object, so it goes the wrong way to every other app you're used to. Which includes the PCB 3D view! This all smacks of many different and isolated projects being tied together with string to make a product.

[AndyC_772]

That may be the case, but the thing to bear in mind is this is a professional tool which is used primarily by people whose job is "PCB design engineer". They use it all day, every day, and features that seem quirky at first are soon committed to muscle memory, and forgotten.

I've just finished another PCB with OrCAD this week, and haven't spent any time thinking about ways in which the software is - at first glance - unintuitive. It may have taken a while to get used to, but now I just get on and use it.

[mstevens]

I recently got Orcad Capture CIS/CIP/Pspice and PCB Designer Professional for 1.4kUSD.

Regular commercial commercial perpetual license ?

Yes!! I did not want to disclose what I paid as I am sure sales works off of commission and maybe they weren't giving the deal to everyone. But yes, what I got was a Professional perpetual license with CIS/CIP/ and Pspice. Also included was 6 months of Ultralibrarian and realize that a license of Spectra is included.

At just over $1400, there is NOTHING, NOTHING I tell you that beats this deal. Go back and look through this forum, you will see the thread where I essentially begged people to call EMA Design and get a copy; It IS A PERPETUAL LICENSE!! Oh well, I got my copy.

[amiq]

Has anyone in the UK had a decent quote for Orcad Pro?

Parallel Systems are still quoting the full price for standard (about £2300).

[PlainName]

It may have taken a while to get used to, but now I just get on and use it

Yes, that's the case with a lot of stuff. But it does indicate that one gets to be biased through usage and product comparisons get skewed by that.

But you can't write off new users that simply now, I think. Those professionals who have spent 30 years driving stuff like Orcad aren't going to be around forever, and whatever was easy for the new bunch to get into is likely to gain traction. Having a user interface that is only bearable once you've invested significant time on it would seem like a quick way to drive potential users to the competition (assuming that's better, of course), and it's something that's easy to fix and should've been fixed a decade ago.

[olkipukki]

USA only, right? 

Try it and report back. You might be surprised

This deal requires HOST ID (aka https://www.ema-eda.com/resources/library/finding-your-mac-address)
and I would assume will cost some money if you need to rehost in a future.

What else you can do about it? Is there USB dongle replacement to HOST ID?

[asmi]

This deal requires HOST ID (aka https://www.ema-eda.com/resources/library/finding-your-mac-address)
and I would assume will cost some money if you need to rehost in a future.

What else you can do about it? Is there USB dongle replacement to HOST ID?

Yes there is. USB HASP Key was $100 extra when I was getting my license. I strongly recommend anyone buying Orcad to get the key, as it will make things much easier - you can install/use SW on several computers (not at the same time of course), you can move installation without involving Cadence support - this is especially important if you let your maintenance subscription lapse, as that service will cost money.

[amiq]

USA only, right? 

Try it and report back. You might be surprised

This deal requires HOST ID (aka https://www.ema-eda.com/resources/library/finding-your-mac-address)
and I would assume will cost some money if you need to rehost in a future.

What else you can do about it? Is there USB dongle replacement to HOST ID?

It's simple to change a PC's host ID so a locked license shouldn't be a problem in the future.

[AndyC_772]

IIRC I was once advised to buy a cheap wireless dongle with its own MAC address, and have the licence locked to that.

I didn't; instead I bought one with the HASP key which was fine until I bought a new PCB with Windows 10. Since I haven't paid maintenance for years, and am still on 16.6 "30th anniversary" edition, installing it on my new laptop was a pain.

It did work, though, thanks to some effort finding compatible drivers for the USB dongle, and I've been running 16.6 since February. As is often the case, the software itself works fine, it's just the damn licensing features that are difficult to get working.

[PlainName]

Got to say that if this were ten years ago a MAC address would be my preference. Used to change those regularly so I could be the green player (and merge into the background) in Doom - it allocated players based on the MAC binary value. To me, that would be much more robust than an easily lost USB stick.

But nowadays... drivers tend not to let you do that kind of thing so it's probably pretty difficult. Haven't hard anyone to play Doom against for a while so haven't had to find out.

[benwis]

I recently got Orcad Capture CIS/CIP/Pspice and PCB Designer Professional for 1.4kUSD.

Regular commercial commercial perpetual license ?

Yes!! I did not want to disclose what I paid as I am sure sales works off of commission and maybe they weren't giving the deal to everyone. But yes, what I got was a Professional perpetual license with CIS/CIP/ and Pspice. Also included was 6 months of Ultralibrarian and realize that a license of Spectra is included.

At just over $1400, there is NOTHING, NOTHING I tell you that beats this deal. Go back and look through this forum, you will see the thread where I essentially begged people to call EMA Design and get a copy; It IS A PERPETUAL LICENSE!! Oh well, I got my copy.

mstevens was right, but yes. Full perpetual commercial license. My license is tied to the MAC address of one of my network adapters, so I'm not too worried about losing it and that value can be easily changed. I always lose or forget software dongles

[chris_leyson]

Capture CIS installed together with an empty Access 2013 database. So under the Capture CIS options menu select CIS configuration wizard... however there is no configuration wizard under the options menu or any other menu Maybe the hotfix broke that feature ? Waiting for Orcad to uninstall and I will give it another try. 

[chris_leyson]

Well that didn't work, click on Capture CIS 17.4 and it launches Capture. Looks like Capture CIS is not included, will have to see what EMA Design Automation have to say. It would have been nice to have the CIS feature 
Offer Details: OrCAD Capture & OrCAD PCB Editor (Powered by Allegro) RTFM 

[olkipukki]

It's simple to change a PC's host ID so a locked license shouldn't be a problem in the future.

How do you change a license host ID?
Is there any limited number of rehosts?

A bit confused if I want run OrCAD (not at the same time) on desktop and in VM image, what would be your option?

[olkipukki]

I think they will keep this offer until the end of September

[LTimko]

FlowCAD now sells OrCAD PCB Designer Standard with 2 years maintenance for 999EUR:
https://www.flowcad.com/en/orcad-standard-promo.htm

It is far from EMA's $530 offer, but CAD softwares in Europe are usually more expensive.