20 years of EAGLE 20?

Wouter Mense schrieb:

This line on the website grabbed my interest:

 

The EAGLE Layout Editor is copyright protected software,

1988-2009 CadSoft Computer GmbH, all rights reserved worldwide.

 

So, does EAGLE really exist for 20 years already? I only got to use the 

software from about version 3.5 I think, so I really don't know anything 

about the early versions.

Yes, it's that "old". I jumped in 1990, IIRC, at V1.2. I was employed at

the local university then, and saw someone using it at a trade fair. Its

usage was much more efficient than the CAD system we had 'til then, and

I managed to get a license for the institute I was working for.

What were they like? Was there already a

website? I tried using the wayback-machine website, but that only goes 

back to 1996. Are there any screenshots of those early versions? I'm just 

really curious about this and maybe if I'm lucky one of the devs could 

tell me something about those early ears if they have the time?

The first versions were plain DOS versions, without schematic capture. I

am not sure when the autorouter was added, since I never really used it.

However, I remember doing some speed comparisons between a 486DX33 and a

486DX2-66 some times, for which I (mis-)used the autorouter. That must

have been in the early 90s, so the autorouter is also fairly "old".

I don't know of a website, since noone had internet connections and

browsers these days. Remember that the internet and all those website

stuff is pretty young, in fact it started not before the mid 90s for

common people.

We got the software on diskettes, first 5.25" DD(?) and later 3.5" HD. I

think I still have some of those old installation disks. Early

versions used a hardware dongle at the parallel port. Sometimes boring

since it wasn't as transparent as promised, and most PCs had only one

parallel port...

I don't have any screenshots. Note that without GUI there were no tools

to take screenshots, either. Each application needed to bring their SVGA

drivers with them. Luckily, several SVGA cards were pretty common then

(Tseng ET3000, ET4000 based), so that worked OK for most. Most

applications still used plain text screens. Today, you could try to run

those old versions in a VM with standard VGA or XGA screen emulation and

then take screenshots... However, due to the dongle I don't know if this

would work.

Interesting however that you still can process EAGLE files from these

older versions today (after upgrading them to V2.6 by command line tool).

Tilmann

Tilmann Reh schrieb:

Wouter Mense schrieb:

 

This line on the website grabbed my interest:

 

The EAGLE Layout Editor is copyright protected software,

1988-2009 CadSoft Computer GmbH, all rights reserved worldwide.

So, does EAGLE really exist for 20 years already? I only got to use the 

software from about version 3.5 I think, so I really don't know anything 

about the early versions.

 

Yes, it's that "old". I jumped in 1990, IIRC, at V1.2. I was employed at

the local university then, and saw someone using it at a trade fair. Its

usage was much more efficient than the CAD system we had 'til then, and

I managed to get a license for the institute I was working for.

 

What were they like? Was there already a

website? I tried using the wayback-machine website, but that only goes 

back to 1996. Are there any screenshots of those early versions? I'm just 

really curious about this and maybe if I'm lucky one of the devs could 

tell me something about those early ears if they have the time?

 

The first versions were plain DOS versions, without schematic capture. I

am not sure when the autorouter was added, since I never really used it.

However, I remember doing some speed comparisons between a 486DX33 and a

486DX2-66 some times, for which I (mis-)used the autorouter. That must

have been in the early 90s, so the autorouter is also fairly "old".

 

I don't know of a website, since noone had internet connections and

browsers these days. Remember that the internet and all those website

stuff is pretty young, in fact it started not before the mid 90s for

common people.

 

We got the software on diskettes, first 5.25" DD(?) and later 3.5" HD. I

think I still have some of those old installation disks. Early

versions used a hardware dongle at the parallel port. Sometimes boring

since it wasn't as transparent as promised, and most PCs had only one

parallel port...

 

I don't have any screenshots. Note that without GUI there were no tools

to take screenshots, either. Each application needed to bring their SVGA

drivers with them. Luckily, several SVGA cards were pretty common then

(Tseng ET3000, ET4000 based), so that worked OK for most. Most

applications still used plain text screens. Today, you could try to run

those old versions in a VM with standard VGA or XGA screen emulation and

then take screenshots... However, due to the dongle I don't know if this

would work.

 

Interesting however that you still can process EAGLE files from these

older versions today (after upgrading them to V2.6 by command line tool).

 

Tilmann

I jumped into eagle 1991 with ver. 2, and yes it had an autorouter.

Checking my old file folder I even found the three 5.25" installation

diskettes ;-).

Next time I clean up my pc, and if I don't forget it, I'll hook up a 5"

drive to it and try if those disks are still readable.

Since you mentioned the dongle - I remember having a stack of 4 dongles

plus the printer on the parallel port and used a wire to take off some

weight from that construction. I still wonder how that could work, but

everyone used a dongle in those days.

--

Gruß / regards

Joern

On 07/31/09 14:43, Wouter Mense wrote:

Hi all,

 

This line on the website grabbed my interest:

 

The EAGLE Layout Editor is copyright protected software,

1988-2009 CadSoft Computer GmbH, all rights reserved worldwide.

 

So, does EAGLE really exist for 20 years already?

Yes, it does

...Was there already a

website? I tried using the wayback-machine website, but that only goes

back to 1996.

Our web presence started in summer of 1995.

Klaus Schmidinger

--

_______________________________________________________________

Klaus Schmidinger                       Phone: +49-8635-6989-10

CadSoft Computer GmbH                   Fax:   +49-8635-6989-40

Hofmark 2                               Email:   kls@cadsoft.de

D-84568 Pleiskirchen, Germany           URL:     www.cadsoft.de

_______________________________________________________________

Wouter Mense <woutermense@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

This line on the website grabbed my interest:

The EAGLE Layout Editor is copyright protected software,

1988-2009 CadSoft Computer GmbH, all rights reserved worldwide.

So, does EAGLE really exist for 20 years already? I only got to use the 

software from about version 3.5 I think, so I really don't know anything 

about the early versions. What were they like? Was there already a 

website? I tried using the wayback-machine website, but that only goes 

back to 1996. Are there any screenshots of those early versions? I'm just 

really curious about this and maybe if I'm lucky one of the devs could 

tell me something about those early ears if they have the time?

Who else remembers the cupon action, promising a some manual (or something

else) that could be printed out only on cracked eagle versions.

A lot of work for the legal department, as some student additionally

installed a cracked version on the PC with the aquired legal Eagle

version...

--

Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt

-

Tel. 06151 162516 -

Fax. 06151 164321 -

Uwe Bonnes wrote:

Wouter Mense <woutermense@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

This line on the website grabbed my interest:

The EAGLE Layout Editor is copyright protected software,

1988-2009 CadSoft Computer GmbH, all rights reserved worldwide.

So, does EAGLE really exist for 20 years already? I only got to use the 

software from about version 3.5 I think, so I really don't know anything 

my first Eagle design is dated 1990. Also using Tseng ET3000,

networking via COM port (Kirschbaum Link).

about the early versions. What were they like? Was there already a 

website? I tried using the wayback-machine website, but that only goes 

1990 was the age of mailboxes, we didn't even use ISDN. I still have

great analog modems, a US Robotics Courier and a Zyxel 14400 modem

(well, I also have a 300bps acoustic coupler). Our E-Mail

communication started much later using a FIDO Gateway.

back to 1996. Are there any screenshots of those early versions? I'm just 

really curious about this and maybe if I'm lucky one of the devs could 

tell me something about those early ears if they have the time?

 

Who else remembers the cupon action, promising a some manual (or something

else) that could be printed out only on cracked eagle versions.

Me. Bad PR and a big mistake, IMNSHO.

A lot of work for the legal department, as some student additionally

installed a cracked version on the PC with the aquired legal Eagle

version...

...among other reasons because the dongle was annoying.

One can still run into trouble by careless use of third party

libraries containing "bad" signatures. It can render the whole design

useless after an update to a new Eagle version.

The bad thing is that it likely affects the legitimate Eagle user

including a downloaded library part, but not people using the cracked

Eagle version - they likely know how to "sanitize" the library and

even a whole design.

IOW: downloaded .lbr (.sch, *.brd) can be "toxic"!

Oliver