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Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

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Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "industry" you mean "electronics hobbyists"?

I oh see you are wanting to diminish her capabilities for some reason. I'm not interested buddy, you can take your sneering elsewhere until you show me the multi million dollar company you have created, the hundreds of commercial quality boards you have designed and sold for real money, the driver software you wrote to make them usable and the industry accolades you have received - on merit.

> and sold for real money

"Lady Ada" and Adafruit certainly are good at price gouging. They often charge exorbitant prices for the same stuff we can get elsewhere at a fraction of the cost. No, providing datasheets and some instruction isn't enough, there's a thousand other sites with better instructions in most if not all cases.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#185
post #179

This is an amazing concept. You still need heavy EE understanding to know how to develop PCBs, so it’s not going to turn every software engineer into a PCB pro, but it could totally change the game for EEs that can learn to code. This is definitely a step in the right direction though and I’m wondering how much of a PCB can be represented in an abstract syntax tree or something similar. Are there edge cases, or could…

Definitely agree this isn't taking away EEs - anytime soon or ideally ever! The goal is to make EEs far more potent, rather than bring SWEs to hardware (although letting them easily tweak existing board's filter constants, vdivs etc... would be awesome too!) We're honestly not sure how explicitly we want to describe a layout in code, or if it's a more declarative thing. Currently we're leaning more towards the declar…

Treating it declaratively is what I initially thought it would be, but what happens when the user needs to tweak the layout for some unique requirement? My guess is what would happen is it would force them to completely eject from your declarative approach, similar to how if you build software on low-code tools, and need to tweak something, you typically have to completely eject. The low-code thing has no understanding to render your custom thing.

Idk maybe this can be solved, but seems problematic to describe layouts like SQL then rely on query planners to deliver the perfect execution.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#188
@Timot05

I wish you the best. Among other things, you are reinventing Verilog and other attempts. Yet, of course, evolution does not happen without people who are willing to devote their valuable time and effort to consider new ideas.

My personal perspective, after having designed hundreds of PCB's, is that there's a reason for which symbol-based data entry has survived decades of computer-based circuit design evolution.

I have also written more software than I can remember in more languages than I am able to list. I have less than zero interest in using a software process to describe circuits of any kind. What makes sense for hardware design inside an FPGA somehow does not translate well outside the chip.

Software and hardware engineering are very different things. It is probably correct to bring-up the fact that many have tried to turn software engineering into precisely the opposite; dragging symbols around and connecting them in schematic form. That approach has failed but for the most trivial educational tools.

> Could you imagine the pain of building an entire software product using only assembly code? That’s about how we felt designing hardware.

Having done this dozens of times, I don't think it is painful and don't see a parallel between assembly coding and designing electronics. In fact, assembly coding is easy for the professional experienced software engineer. Of course, it is probably close to a nightmare for someone who's never done it or never even studied machine level coding. Ballroom dancing is impossible for me. I am not a dancer. And it should be in a range between difficult and impossible for anyone without the requisite training and practice. So, that's not the right metric.

Drawing schematics is easy. Schematics convey lots of information quickly. Function, structure, constraints, implementation notes, support/service notes, fabrication guidelines, etc. Also, they are trivially and instantly easy to understand, gather around and discuss. They present a mental image and state that would require fairly deep concentration to develop if reading a schematic as code (except for trivial circuits, which don't really matter). Schematics, as I said earlier, have survived the test of time for a reason: They work.

That's not to say a different approach isn't possible. All I am saying is that I would think hard before attempting something that very clearly few engineers want and care about.

For reference, I started life drawing all of my schematics and PCB layouts by hand. I then transitioned to using AutoCAD v1.0 and writing tons of LISP code to make that easier. From there I migrated and used a bunch of tools most experienced EE's have touched: OrCAD, Protel, Mentor, Cadence, Altium, KiCad, Eagle and likely others I can't remember.

Oh, yes, I also completed a few layouts back in the day using X-acto knives and stick-on traces and doughnuts on vellum. That was fun.

This page shows a number of approaches. I all of these back in the early 80's.

https://www.pcbwizards.com/handtape.htm

Yes, that's a roll of black tape she is using:

https://i.imgur.com/yUgZ5zz.png

Schematics are not the problem.

This isn't intended to discourage you at all. All I am suggesting is that you might want to interview 100 EE's and see if this matches the idea of "build something people want". Don't interview software guys who tinker with electronics as a hobby (unless that's your audience). Interview real, working, EE's with 10+ years of experience using EDA tools from different vendors and generations. My prediction is that you will quickly discover nearly nobody cares about moving away from schematics. You will definitely find other pain pain points, just not schematics.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#189
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! Haven't come across it before but those linked `~>` operators do indeed quite familiar. If you're familiar with GraphDSL do you have some elements we should look into?

By reading some code here https://github.com/Timot05/logic-card/blob/main/elec/src/log... I wonder if with directional arrows, instead of writing "out ~ switch.in; switch.out ~ power.gnd", we could write "out ~> switch ~> power.gnd" instead? But without distinction between in and out ports it may not be possible to check if connections are valid ones. Anyway, this project really makes me want to learn electronics! Co…

You're absolutely right! We've been thinking very similar ways about "dipole" components and how to best do this; and I think you've nailed it. What about using dunder __in__ and __out__ attributes? Easy enough to implement for us and overload for folks in the future.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#190

@Timot05 I wish you the best. Among other things, you are reinventing Verilog and other attempts. Yet, of course, evolution does not happen without people who are willing to devote their valuable time and effort to consider new ideas. My personal perspective, after having designed hundreds of PCB's, is that there's a reason for which symbol-based data entry has survived decades of computer-based circuit design evolut…

I am curious to hear that you dont see any value in bringing software workflow to hardware. I found in previous jobs we spent a huge fraction of our time dealing with things like release, version management and reviews. Thanks for your thoughts!
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