Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

withdiode.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 270 posts

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#201

Post by xattt »

atoav wrote: post #194

As someone who teaches electronics to people who are purely into it for the practical parts (artists) I think one of the main beginner challenges in electronics is the translation between the different representations of a circuit. Going from a schematic to a breadboard, going from a breadboard to a stripboard or from a schematic to the actual PCB/IC is hard if you never have done it. It is like showing someone who h…

The best tool I ever used to learn about circuits was a Radio Shack electronics kit. It was something I could pick away at for years as kid, and eventually develop an intuitive sense for reading a schematic.

I believe that Elenco continues to make a version of it: https://shop.elenco.com/consumers/electronic-playground-130....

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#202

Post by Faf »

tda wrote: post #178
repiret wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently came across a reference manual for an SoC that came in at over 24,000 pages - a new personal record. The tools for working with such large PDFs generally suck.

I'd be so happy with a 24,000 page PDF, cause then at least you know where too look, and you can the search tool. I programme Siemens hardware and the docs I need are spread out over many tens of PDFs (of 100-1500 pages). I haven't found a proper tool than can let me search and view all this documentation properly. Best I found is ripgrep with some PDF extension to search which document I need, and then use SumatraPD…

Use Agent Ransack (free) or better, File Locator Pro ($69) from Mythicsoft. Both include comprehensive PDF text searching. AR includes the full functionality of FLP as a 30 day trial. Money you'll recover many times over and a product you'll be using for the rest of your life. https://www.mythicsoft.com/

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#203

Post by blacklion »

malerba118 wrote: post #70
heywherelogingo wrote: post #32

The ones from 2003 worked - this is mostly blank and does nothing.

this combines spice simulations with microcontroller simulations

Proteus mixed mode simulation is here from... let me look it up... 1996! 26 years for now.

And it looks modern enough for me.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#205

Post by blacklion »

For me, circuit simulator / schematic capture tool (you can not have former without latter effectively, nobody creates netlists in text editor now) which look modern will use modern conventions about mouse and keyboard, which is well-known to anybody who tried at least one graphical editor.

You now, left (primary) click for select, click-hold-and-move to move, right (secondary) click for context menu, this kind of stuff.

Many PCB/Schematics/Simulation packages uses their own old conventions, which are alien to modern users, like "you must have to choose move tool, click on symbol, move, click to drop in new place" and so on.

3D, skeuomorphism, etc., looks nice in tutorials with 3-10 parts but are unusable after that.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#206

Post by dotancohen »

alxlaz wrote: post #195
dotancohen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another terrific option is Okular. It actually has a setting to reduce memory usage on large PDF files by not prerendering pages that are not being viewed.

Eek, Okular. The one time I resorted to downgrading a package in 20+ years of using Linux. A few years back, someone drank too much design Kool-Aid and introduced smooth scrolling without making it optional. That did not get a very good reception from everyone, as browsing 20,000-page reference manuals with buttery smooth scrolling is, literally, dizzying. I don't know if it ever got fixed. I stopped using Linux arou…

I've never opened a 20,000 page document, but I've opened documents of several hundred pages with no noticeable issues. Pressing either Space or PgDown instantly moves the page down, no scrolling animation. The option still does not exist, but it seems that the feature doesn't exist either.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#207

Post by puzzlingcaptcha »

gumboza wrote: post #25

I want 2003. That's the last time anything worked. LTspice for example. Edit: worth nothing there is a native macOS port of LTspice now.

Logism evolution works great and is quite modern.

https://github.com/logisim-evolution/logisim-evolution

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#209

Post by alxlaz »

dotancohen wrote: post #206
alxlaz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eek, Okular. The one time I resorted to downgrading a package in 20+ years of using Linux. A few years back, someone drank too much design Kool-Aid and introduced smooth scrolling without making it optional. That did not get a very good reception from everyone, as browsing 20,000-page reference manuals with buttery smooth scrolling is, literally, dizzying. I don't know if it ever got fixed. I stopped using Linux arou…

I've never opened a 20,000 page document, but I've opened documents of several hundred pages with no noticeable issues. Pressing either Space or PgDown instantly moves the page down, no scrolling animation. The option still does not exist, but it seems that the feature doesn't exist either.

IIRC the eventual fix was to have it respect the global compositor settings, so if you have animation speed set to instant, while it does actually smooth scroll, it does so instantly. However, when it was introduced, it did not; for similar reasons (i.e. I don't like nausea), I had animations disabled, but Okular did its thing, and slowly.

It took some time for it to land though and not without the kind of discussions that you see on the Gnome bug tracker. It was pretty disheartening.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#210

Post by pjmlp »

ilyt wrote: post #63
Kwpolska wrote: post #8

The competition might look ancient, but IMO, a 2D interface would be much more productive and easier to work with. This site is completely unusable for me in Firefox (it does work in Edge though).

If you have ever used LTSpice you'd know, the "old" looking layout is not really a problem but the arcane way anything is done, different from every app I ever used.

To show my age, during digital circuit design classes I used something similar but targeted to Windows 3.x.

It was much better than the simulator shown on this thread.

Post reply on HN