20 years of EAGLE 20?

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

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