TekNoir said:
I happen to use both, though for entirely different purposes.
I use Lochmaster just as you do. I use Virtual Breadboard for rapid prototyping. Lochmaster allows you to do an electrical connection check, but VBB has basic emulation, including for some PIC microcontrollers. This allows one to see more of an immediate affect of changing something around. It enables me to breadboard things just like I would at my workbench, without actually getting hands-on I suppose. Not to mention the time required to gather and test components and other myriad pre-design considerations. It is basic in what it does, I will grant anyone that, but it is one of the best meshes between conventional schematic software, which isn't very visually intuitive, and working on an actual breadboard. It gives one the feeling that one is actually
building something as opposed to being perpetually in the design stage.
Joel Rainville said:
Virtual Breaboard, in my humble opinion, is trying to do too much. It's a weird mix of schematic, layout and simulation software all crammed up into a single workspace interface. I wildly prefer Livewire for schematics and simulation.
I completely agree with this statement about trying to do too much, though I prefer Proteus for schematic capture and simulation.
Joel Rainville said:
Provided it has a USB port or Acrobat Reader or an internet connection...
Foxit PDF reader allows me to read or print PDFs on any computer, whether they have any Adobe software installed or not. My only requirement is a USB port, which nearly every computer since 1997 has been manufactured to include.
Joel Rainville said:
So what you're saying is that your PocketPC is not powerful enough to run Lochmaster, your laptop is too big or airplane/train seats are too small.
You either don't own a PocketPC (or a PalmPilot for that matter) or are just trying to argue for the sake of arguing. This is a moot point since Lochmaster wasn't compiled to run on the StrongArm processor used in most PocketPCs.
Joel Rainville said:
Also, your edits on the PDF are useless when you want to take the layout back in Lochmaster. You might as well just draw on your printout - which you could have conveniently printed out at home before leaving - and apply your edits to the original when you get back home.
PDFs weren't meant to be edited by users anyway. It's a format designed to look and print exactly the same on any kind of hardware and software configuration.
Who wants to put them back into Lochmaster? I hardcopy everything. One harddrive crash and one failed backup too many taught me to never rely on computer technology alone. (Especially when it runs Windows as an operating system.) Your statement about PDFs is exactly why I use them. They come out looking the same despite the computer, operating system, or printer that I print them from. It's that uniformity thing that I mentioned.
Joel Rainville said:
To me, your whole geeky story is all about trying to fit a Fisher Price square block into the triangle hole. You've managed to do it by melting the square even though it wasn't designed to do it and there's a conveniently cube-shaped hole right next to it.
This statement has no relevance whatsoever to this topic. My original statement was that I prefer to use printed sheets (and gave a link to an example) as do thousands of other people in this world for the past fifty years.
Either you can use Virtual BreadBoard or not. Quite frankly, I could care less. I just mentioned it because I find it useful. There are more people on this board than just you and if only one other person finds it useful who previously did not know about it, then I consider my advice well placed. Apparently, there are enough people who share my opinion that VBB is useful that it has been featured in three different magazines. And that's only the ones that I am aware of...
This board used to be a place where one could come to give and receive help and find the constructive thought of one's peers. It has turned, over time, into one large heap of over-opinionated, big-headed snobs.
I would ask that you please send any further comments regarding my posts on this topic to my message box.
Edit: Posted wrong final copy.