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DC CAD (tm) Electronic Board Design Shareware Copy Release 1.0 ----------------------------- DC SOFTWARE (tm) 5276 HOLLISTER AVE. SUITE 405 SANTA BARBARA, CA 93111 Tel: 805-964-0473 Fax: 805-683-7690 BBS: 805-964-2833 ----------------------------- THANK-YOU --------- Thank you for downloading DC CAD, the third in a series of quality products scheduled for release this year. We hope you enjoy this shareware version, and that you will register your copy of DC CAD which will entitle you to our complete package including a published User's Manual and more. REGISTRATION ------------ To register DC CAD, send $34 (Over 50% Discount off Retail Price) to DC SOFTWARE at the above address. California residents please add sales tax. You can also order using MasterCard or Visa by calling our order line at 805-964-0473. Dealer and OEM inquiries are welcome. Users who register DC CAD will receive, by return mail, the registered version of the program and the published User's Manual as well. ------------ Users Manual ------------ Table of Contents _________________ Section-1 An Overview Section-2 Getting Started Section-3 Orientation Section-4 The Drawing Tools Section-5 The Menus Section-6 Setting Options Section-7 Printing Section-8 Custom Printer Installation Section-9 Designing ICONS Section-10 Tricks and Techniques 1-1 Overview -------- DC CAD combines the ease and versatility of a pixel-oriented drawing program with the specialized tools and funtions of a CAD program to give you an uncommon level of control in creating schematics and double-side board layouts. Developed originally for our own programers in-house use, DC CAD was designed to produce clear, dark, board images on his quite ordinary dot-matrix printers. Of primary concern was the degree of control of the printed image and the speed at which the display screen updates when moving around a large drawing. You will find that DC CAD has a very good "pencil & paper" feel to it. The mouse response is adjustable to give exactly the feel you like, as this varies greatly from one individual to another. There is nothing hidded or ambiguous about the drawings you make. This is very much a "what-you-see" is " what-you-get" program. Because it was designed to be used by other engineers, we incor- porated a printer setup screen to allow users to configure the program to their own printers with a great deal of versatility. The printer setup screen may also be used to "diddle" the existing printer configurations at the user's discretion. Please feel free to call or write with your comments or suggestions. Enhancements to the program are based largely on requests made to us. 2-1 Getting Started --------------- There is no installation required for this program, just type "DCCAD" at the command prompt. This will run DC CAD in the default EGA mode (640 x 350 color). The MENUS section tells you how to switch to VGA (640 x 480) mode and make this the default mode when the program starts. When you see the main drawing screen displayed, click the mouse button to clear the copyright notice and begin running the program. We suggest that you have the program running as you go through this manual. Try things out as you go. You will probably have the basic operation down in about an hour. Before we go further, lets define some of the terms used in this manual. Some of these will be familliar to you if you have used other graphics programs. Others are particular to this program alone. 2-2 MIDDLE BUTTON: If your mouse has only two buttons, use the SPACE BAR any time the program calls for the middle button. CURSOR: The thing that moves around on the screen as you move the mouse. The size and shape of the cursor will depend on where you are and what you are doing. DRAWING PLANES: The FRONT and REAR drawings that are superimposed on the screen when doing double-sided board layouts act independantly of each other - as if they were two separate drawings. This can be visualized as being on different 'planes'. ICON: This is a 'picture' of something - such as a NAND gate, or an IC pad. It is placed onto the drawing as a whole - eliminating the need to draw one 'by hand' each time it is needed. MENU: The words at the top of the screen are the menus. A menu is a list of functions, files, or other items from which to choose. Menus are accessed by placing the cursor on the menu heading, holding down one of the mouse buttons while moving down to the desired selection, and releasing the button. CLICKING: Pushing a mouse button and releasing it immediately. DRAGGING: Pushing a mouse button, holding it down while moving the mouse, and releasing it at the new location. PIXEL: The pixel is the ATOM of the graphics universe. It is the smallest little color dot that your graphics board can produce and the smallest little black dot that your printer can print. HOT SPOT: When referring to a cursor, the hot-spot is the place on the cursor where it acts. The hot-spot of the arrow cursor(used to access controls and menus) is at its point. The hot-spot of the line-drawing (cross) cursor is at its center. The hot-spot of an icon tells where to place it in the drawing relative to the cursor's hot-spot. 3-1 Orientation ----------- The drawing tool controls are on the left side of the screen. You activate one of them by clicking the arrow cursor on it. Some of these will automatically deactivate the previously active one. Others act independently. The activated control will be highlighted. The LINEWIDTH control is the short horizontal line just below the drawing tool controls. Clicking on this will make it wider (the LEFT button) or narrower (the RIGHT button). The next item on our tour of the left side of your screen is the FONT control. Here you see the letters "ABC" displayed in the currently selected font. Like the linewidth control, this is both a control and an indicator. Click any button on these letters to select from the available fonts. At the bottom of the screen you MAY see the currently selected icon (only if you have loaded an icon file and selected one). Clicking directly on this icon flips and rotates it through all 8 possible orientations. Depending on the type of symmetry the icon has, some of these may be identical, or look identical, but be aware of where the hot-spot is located. At the top of the screen are the MENUS which look like this when you first run the program - <D-File> <I-File> <icon> Edit Special Help x: 123 y: 456 ------------------------------------------------------------------- The first five are your typical "pull-down" menus: Point to the menu title with the arrow cursor. Push any button and hold it down. (The menu selections will be displayed below the menu title) While holding the button down, move to the desired selection. (The selections are highlighted as you move across them) Release the button. The Help menu does not require any "pulling down". Just click on the word HELP and a window will appear in the middle of the screen with information related to the last tool, control, menu, or other parameter you have last accessed. 3-2 Many help windows have highlighted words that will send you directly to other help windows. Click directly on the highlighted words for additional help. Clicking anywhere else will clear the help window. The x and y coordinate values at the far right end of the menu bar indicate your exact position in the drawing. Moving the cursor to point directly to these numbers will cause them to display the current display mode of the coordinates. Clicking on them will cycle the display mode thru PIXEL, PRINT, and BOARD. 4-1 This is the LINE drawing tool. Lines are drawn vertically, horizontally, or diagonally at 45 degrees. The line drawing cursor is sized to show the currently selected linewidth (see LINEWIDTH control). Position the cursor to the starting position. The cursor should be stationary. If it is in motion when the button is pressed, the program will not be sure of exactly where you want to start and will refuse to draw the line. Hold down the LEFT button to draw a line that terminates when it encounters an object on the screen. - or - Hold down the RIGHT button to draw a line that does not terminate when it encounters an object on the screen. Move the cursor to the ending position. Release the button. Like the other line manipulation tools, the LINE drawing tool analyzes data on the screen to do its job. Having the line terminate when it encounters an IC pad, for instance, allows you to position the cursor in the middle of the pad without overwriting the 'hole'. Additionally, wide lines will 'form around' the edjes of rounded objects or diagonal lines encountered. For drawing lines on schematics, where you DO want the line to go completely from end to end, use the RIGHT button. This is useful when the line you draw will be crossing other lines in your drawing. 4-2 This is the BOX drawing tool. Boxes are drawn using the current LINEWIDTH. The box drawing cursor is sized to show the currently selected linewidth. (see LINEWIDTH control) Position the cursor to the starting position (one corner). Hold down the LEFT button to draw a NORMAL box. - or - Hold down the RIGHT button to draw a line REVERSAL box. Move the cursor to the ending position (diagonally opposite corner). Release the button. Boxes are used mostly in schematics for drawing IC's other than simple gates and inverters. The boxes you draw may be 'resized' at a later time by using the LINE MOVING (rubber banding) tool. The REVERSAL mode is a useful way to erase an existing box. 4-3 This is the ERASER. The eraser ignores the state of the GRID-TOGGLE and lets you move freely around the screen. The eraser is ACTIVE while any button is held down. The eraser removes exactly what is under it when it is active. Note: The eraser employs controlled mouse ballistics to avoid 'skipping' over parts of the screen. LEFT button erases only on current plane (FRONT or REAR) RIGHT button erases on both planes To erase large areas of the screen use the OUTLINE tool. To erase very small areas (or single pixels) use the PENCIL tool in the expanded screen mode. 4-4 This is the TEXT tool. The TEXT tool is used to place text (in the currently selected font) anywhere on the screen in any one of four directions. The TEXT tool cursor is a small triangle pointing in the direction the text will be written. Click the RIGHT button to select the desired direction. Position the text tool cursor to the spot on the screen where you want to begin writing text. Click the LEFT button to ACTIVATE the text writing mode - an underscore will appear one pixel past the point of the triangle. Type text directly onto the screen. The full ASCII character set is supported in all font sizes, but the smallest font size is upper-case only for the characters A to Z. There are two special cases. The ENTER key moves you back to the original left margin TWO grid spacings down ("down" is relative to what direction you are writing in). The reason for this double spacing becomes obvious when you are putting both LEGENDS on lines coming from IC's and PIN NUMBERS inside the IC (or vice-versa). One needs to be inserted in between the lines and one needs to be lined up with the end of the lines. The BACKSPACE key moves you back one character at a time and restores anything you wrote text over all the way back to where you started. Note: When writing text on the REAR plane, all text is written in a mirror-image fashon. When the REAR plane is printed, it is reversed left to right and the text will then be correct on the printout - as well as on the bottom side of your etched circuit board. There is a limit of 200 characters at a time in this mode. Do not try to use this program as a word processor. 4-5 This is the OUTLINE tool. The OUTLINE tool is used to move or copy rectangular regions of your drawing. It can copy from one place in your drawing to another, from one plane to the other, or from one drawing file to another. The Edit menu provides several additional functions for the outline tool. The first step is to create the outline of the region. This is always done with the following steps. 1. Position the cursor to one corner of the region. 2. Hold down the LEFT button to outline on the currently active plane (FRONT or REAR), or hold down the RIGHT button to make the outline active on both planes. 3. Move to the corner diagonally opposite. 4. Release the button - you should now see it outlined. If the outline is not where you want it, position the cursor outside of the outline and click any button to remove the outline. Then go back to step 1. Now that you have the outline, you have several choices of what to do with the image inside of it ("inside of it" includes the outline itself). You can copy or move the image anywhere on the screen as follows... 5. Move the cursor inside the outline. 6. Hold down the LEFT button to move the region. - or - Hold down the RIGHT button to copy the region. 7. Move the cursor to the destination - the outline box will follow your cursor movements. 8. Release the button to place the image. If the image is not exactly where you intended, go back to step 5. When you have the image just where you want it, position the cursor outside of the outline and click any button. - or - 4-6 You may move or copy the outlined region to somewhere off-screen in the drawing, to the other drawing plane (in LAYOUT mode), or to another file. Move the cursor up to the EDIT menu and select either CUT or COPY. Switch planes, drawings, move to another section of the drawing, or any combination of these. Move the cursor back up to the EDIT menu and select PASTE. You can now proceed as in step 5 to position the image anywhere on the screen. Other Edit menu options will FILL the region, FLIP the region horizontally or vertically, ROTATE the region left or right, or INVERT the image in the outlined region. Since these operations are used less frequently, they have not been optimized for speed. NOTE: The size of the area you can outline is determined by the amount of free memory available after the program loads. 4-7 This is the ICON tool. This tool is used to place ready-made images into your drawing. To use it, first select an ICON FILE by using the menu at the top of the screen. Then select an ICON by name from the menu. The icon you select will be displayed in the lower left corner of the screen. The icon displayed will be shown in the orientation in which it was originally created. Moving the cursor to point to the icon and clicking any button will re-orient it through a series of eight possible orientations. Superimposed on the icon are the "crosshairs" that define the "hot-spot" for that particular icon. This indicates exactly how the icon will be positioned on the drawing relative to the grid. This tool works differently in the SCHEMATIC and LAYOUT modes. In the SCHEMATIC mode - Click the LEFT button to write the icon normally. Click the RIGHT button to write the icon in REVERSAL mode. In the LAYOUT mode - Click the LEFT button to place the icon on the current plane. Click the RIGHT button to place the icon in both planes. Click the MIDDLE button to erase the icon on both planes. 4-8 This is the PAGE mover. This tool is used to move around on the drawing. The amount of the drawing that can be viewed at any time depends on the vertical and horizontal size of your graphics screen display. Rulers on the bottom and right side of the screen indicated which part of the drawing you are currently viewing. To use the page mover - Position the cursor anywhere on the drawing. Hold down the LEFT button and move the cursor to the desired location. Release the button. The page mover acts as if you were physically grabbing hold of some area of the drawing and dragging it to a new location. Whatever the cursor was pointing to will wind up approximately under the cursor at its new location. The final location will not usually be exactly where the cursor is. This is because the screen is always shifted in whole byte (8 pixel) increments in the left-right direction. The speed at which the screen "replots" when moving the page is enhanced by restricting movement to whole byte increments. This tool can also be used to reposition the drawing itself, that is, to move the drawing relative the drawing area. To do this, use the RIGHT button. Moving the drawing itself is a slower operation, much slower, but this is not something you normally need to do very often. Also, the program checks to make sure that none of the drawing will be lost (clipped) in doing the move operation. Sould you accidentally use the wrong button, you may abort the operation by hitting any key on the keyboard while the program is checking the boundries of your drawing. Once it starts moveing the drawing, the operation cannot be aborted. But not to worry, none of your drawing will be lost in either case - you can always move it back. 4-9 This is the LINE-MOVER (rubber banding) tool. To use the LINE-MOVER you must have the LINEWIDTH set to match the width of the line you want to move. This tool uses artificial intelligence techniques to determine how to move the line and how to adjust other lines that it connects to. It's a fun tool to use. Position the cursor directly and exactly on the line to be moved. It can be a vertical or horizontal line but not a diagonal one. This positioning is much easier if you have the GRID activated. Hold down the LEFT button to activate the line-mover. The cursor will now display a double headed arrow pointing either left and right, or up and down as appropriate. Move the cursor to the target position. Release the button. If the LINE mover detects a collision at the new position, a beep sounds and the line is not moved. You may override the collision detection and force the move by using the RIGHT button instead. There is no collision detection performed on the lines that connect to the one you are moving (we're working on it!). If these collide with other lines or pads, you should get no know the UNDO tool. 4-10 This is the LINE-KILL tool. As with the line-mover, be sure you have the proper LINEWIDTH selected. Working with the GRID active will make things easier. The LINE-KILL tool will remove either single lines (vertical or horizontal but not diagonal), or follow a trace in both directions, around corners, erasing until it encounters something that doesn't look "like a line". Use it as follows - Position the cursor on a vertical or horizontal line. Click the LEFT button to erase only this line. - or - Click the RIGHT button to follow the line around and erase all of it as it goes. Note: This tool will stop when it encounters a 'T' intersection or a diagonal line or anything else that doesn't "look like a line". This tool is smart about crossing other lines and not putting holes in the lines that it crosses. 4-11 This is the PENCIL. This tool is not affected by the state of the grid-toggle and you can always position it anywhere on the screen. It writes or erases single dots on the screen. The main use of this tool is in its ability to "blow up" part of the drawing to allow easy pixel-by-pixel modifications to your drawing. Position the pencil cursor anywhere on the screen. The "hot spot" of the pencil is exactly at the juntion of the vertical and horizontal lines at its point. Clicking the LEFT button writes a dot. (Holding down the LEFT button and dragging the pencil around makes lots of dots.) Clicking the RIGHT button erases a dot. Clicking the MIDDLE button expands the screen image at that point. The expanded image fills the screen with little squares that can be turned on and off using the PENCIL. This is quite handy for cleaning up those little blotches and doing very fine image editing. Click the LEFT button to make a square, or hold down the button to make them as you move around. Click the RIGHT button to erase a square, or hold down the button to erase them as you move. Click the MIDDLE button to return to the full screen image. In either the normal or expanded mode, this tool employes controlled mouse ballistics to prevent skipping over points. If you drag the mouse around wildly, it may act slightly strange in interpolating the intermediate mouse positions. 4-12 This is the FLOOD tool. Unlike the FILL function on the Edit menu, the FLOOD tool fills in a selected area without touching pads or traces. This leaves an area of copper on the circuit board to act as shielding or heat-sinking or just saves etchant when making the board. This tool uses the current LINEWIDTH setting to determine how close it can get to pads and traces when flooding. So set the linewidth before using it. To use this tool - Outline the region to be flooded the same way as when using the OUTLINE tool. Position the cursor to a blank spot inside the outlined region. Click the LEFT button to flood only the area CONTINUOUS with the cursor location. That is, given the flooding tolerance (set by the linewidth), and starting from the cursor location, and given the clearance between pads and such in the area, what locations can it "ooze to". Click the RIGHT button to flood all areas inside the region whether they are continuous or not. Click the MIDDLE button (or spacebar) with the cursor pointing to and already flooded region to deflood it. 4-13 This is the UNDO tool. Do to the PIXEL nature of this program, an interesting type of undo function becomes possible. The UNDO tool is a small window that lets you see what the drawing was like before recent changes were made. It is not limited the the last operation done. Some information on how this program stores drawings will be helpful here. All of the drawing tools act directly on the video memory. This memory is what you see on your monitor. When certain operations (such as menus, help windows, or the page mover) are used, the program copies the video screen data to RAM memory, does the operation, and then restores the video information from RAM memory. So the data stored in RAM memory is a copy of what was on the screen the last time one of these operations was performed. The UNDO tool gives you a window into this memory image. As you move it around, you see what the corresponding image looked like. Holding down a button as you move around "pulls up" the memory image in that area and puts it back on the screen. Note: The UNDO tool works on only one plane at a time. If you need to undo data on both planes, use the PLANE toggle to switch to the other plane and continue undoing there. 4-14 This is the PLANE TOGGLE. This tool is active only in the LAYOUT mode (when working on a double-sided board layout). This tool switches you from the FRONT drawing plane to the REAR drawing plane. Most other tools work only on the currently selected plane. If you have activated the OVERLAY option on the Special menu, only the active plane will be displayed. Note: The action of the PLANE TOGGLE is not the same as the SWAP function on the SPECIAL menu. The SWAP function actually swaps the drawing data from the front and rear planes - the PLANE TOGGLE selects which plane is ACTIVE and therefore accessible to the other drawing tools. 4-15 This is the GRID-TOGGLE tool. This tool makes the currently selected grid active or inactive. Many of the drawing tools are affected by the GRID. Some, such as the pencil and eraser, are not. Clicking on this tool toggles the grid on and off. The actual grid spacing is selected on the OPTIONS display screen which is on the SPECIAL menu. Setting the LINEWIDTH --------------------- The linewidth is set by simply clicking the arrow cursor on the short horizontal line displayed just below the drawing tools. This is both the line width indicator and the linewidth control. Click the LEFT button here to increase the linewidth. Click the RIGHT button here to decrease the linewidth. Note: The minimum linewidth is 1 - the maximum linewidth is 10. The LINE and BOX drawing cursors are automatically sized to the current linewidth, and the line-moving and line-killing tools use this information to differentiate lines (traces) from other things on the drawing. The FLOOD tool uses this to set the clearance when flooding. 5-1 The MENUS ---------- <D-File> This is the drawing file menu. When you access this menu, you will see all of the drawing files in your directory listed along with the two special options, <save-as> and <clear>. Selecting <save-as> causes a "pop-up" window to appear on the screen. Enter just the base filename here - without the extent. (i.e. DRAWING2 not DRAWING2.EC). This will create a new file or overwrite an existing file with the current drawing. Selecting <clear> will erase the entire drawing, but does not affect the drawing file on the disk (if one had been previously loaded). Use this funtion to discard all changes made since you loaded your last file. Selecting a file from the list begins a rather involved process - 1 - The currently active file (the last one loaded) is written to the disk along with: a) The GRID setting b) The drawing type (single or double sided) c) The LINEWIDTH setting d) The name of the current ICON file. e) The width and height of the drawing 2 - If any icon has been edited or a new icon added to the list, the current icon file will be written to the disk (overwriting the existing one). 3 - The selected drawing file will be loaded along with all the settings shown in #1 above. 4 - The icon file that was active when this file was last saved will be loaded. 5 - The new drawing and icon file names will appear as menu titles at the top of the screen. This makes switching between files very convenient. If you do not want to save changes made to the current drawing before loading another, use <clear> before selecting a new file to load. If the file you load is the same one that you currently have loaded, the entire process (steps 1 to 5) will be performed causing a "Save" of the current file to the disk. 5-2 <I-File> This is the ICON file menu. You may use this function at any time to load an icon file whether or not a drawing file has been loaded. If you already have an icon file loaded and pick a new one, and any changes have been made to the current icons, the current file will be written to disk before the new one is loaded. Two special options appear on this menu - <save as> and <new>. <save as> Creates a new icon file containing the icons that you presently have loaded. You will be prompted for a filename. Give just the base name of the file. <new> Creats an new, empty, icon file. Be sure to put at least 2 new icons in this file before saving it or switching files. (yes - its a bug) The name of the current icon file will be shown in the menu bar at the top of the screen. <icon> Once an icon file has been loaded, the name of the currently selectd icon will appear in this position in the menu bar. Icons are picked by name from this menu. The icon itself is displayed in the lower left hand corner of the screen. 5-3 EDIT The edit menu contains the following functions: COPY: Grabs a copy of the currently OUTLINED portion of the drawing. CUT: Works like COPY but then erases the outlined portion. PASTE: Places a previously captured portion back into the drawing. FILL: Does a solid fill of the outlined portion. INVERT: Reverses the black-white sense of the outlined portion. FLIP-H: Reverses the image left to right. FLIP-V: Reverses the image top to bottom. ROTATE-R: Rotates 90 degrees to the right. ROTATE-L: Rotates 90 degrees to the left. EDIT ICON: Allows you to modify the pixel pattern, hot-spot, and name of the currently displayed icon. NEW ICON: Allows you to create a new icon. (see detailed section on editing and creating icons) SPECIAL This menu has the following funtions: OPTIONS: Sends you to the options setup screen where you may change - The GRID setting The file type (drawing or layout) The file packing method The printing options The mouse response The video mode and settings The drawing type, height and width The color assignments Options that you set will be saved when you exit the program and still be in effect the next time you run it. (see detailed description under section on OPTIONS) 5-4 PRINTER: Sends you to the printer selection screen to choose a new printer and gives you access to the highly versatile PRINTER CONFIGURATION SCREEN. If you select a new printer, the PRINTERS file on the disk is immediately updated. Even if you exit the program, this same printer will still be selected the next time you run the program. PRINT: Choosing this causes printing to begin immediately. You may stop printing by hitting any key. When printing a double sided drawing, the currently active drawing plane is printed. If the REAR plane is active, it will be printed REVERSED (mirror-imaged left to right). SWAP: This actually swaps the FRONT and REAR drawing data. OVERLAY: This function causes only the ACTIVE drawing plane to be displayed on the screen. On a high density drawing, it can be confusing to see both planes at once. Once this function is activated, the PLANE toggle will not only switch which plane is active, but only the active plane will be displayed. Choosing this function a second time will de-activate it. CLEAR: The clears the ACTIVE drawing plane only. Reasons for doing this are covered in the tricks and techniques section. DONE/SAVE: This will save the current DRAWING file, the currently selected OPTIONS, and the current ICON file (if it has been modified). QUIT: This saves only the options - it abandons everything else and exits the program. There is also an EMERGENCY EXIT to the program - the F9 function key. Sould something go really wrong and your screen blanks out do to video failure, or the hostile action of some TSR program, and the program is still running, this will cause the current drawing to be saved under the name ABORT.EC and your icon file (if it has been modified) under the name ABORT.ECI without affecting the original files. 6-1 Setting Options --------------- Choose OPTIONS from the SPECIAL menu to access the options screen. The options screen gives you access to many of the settings that you may only need to change occasionally as compared to the tools and menus that you have direct access to from the main drawing screen. Changes that you make on the options screen become active immediately but are not saved to disk until you exit the program. Some of these options are also saved in your drawing files when you switch files. To modify an option, point the cursor at the appropriate box and click any button. Some of these boxes toggle on and off, some turn off other options, and some take data from the keyboard. Clicking on any of these will make HELP available for that box. After clicking on the box, move up to the menu bar and click on Help. When modifying those that take keyboard data, Click on the box, use the backspace key to remove the old data, type in the new data, then hit ENTER to exit the box and re-activate the cursor. No error checking is done on some of these boxes. Taken one at a time, this is what each of them does: GRID: Sets the grid spacing for the drawing. Values of 2 thru 60 are allowed. Choosing the right grid spacing for your application makes drawings and layouts much easier. Remember, this only sets the grid spacing - use the GRID TOGGLE control on the main drawing screen to turn the grid on and off. Also, when you load a file, the grid setting that was chosen when the file was last saved will automatically be loaded. SHOW GRID: This box toggles on and off. In the LAYOUT mode only, a grid of dots will be displayed (using the BOARDER color) on the main drawing screen. These dots are displayed only on even grid positions. PACKING: This is a toggle, it clicks on and off. When this option is enabled, files are compressed both vertically and horizontally. Because additional processing time is needed for the extra file compression, you may want this option disabled when switching between several files. Board layouts tend to compress more than schematics. This option controls only the WRITING of files, all files will automatically read in properly. PRINT WIDTH: This sets the carriage width of your printer (in inches). It tells the program not to extend the print image past that point. Values of 1 to 15 are allowed here. 6-2 BIDIR: This is a toggle, it clicks on and off. It activates bidirectional printing. Although this makes printouts faster, on many printers some skewing of the forward and reverse printed dots will make the printout untidy. DRAFT: This is a toggle, it clicks on and off. It causes the printer to print without overlapping. This is handy to make a faster printout of your entire drawing to see the general size and shape of things. VERTICAL: This is a toggle. When it is active, the direction of printing is rotated 90 degrees. NEGATIVE: Causes a black-white reversal of the printout. MOUSE: This is the mouse response control. All mouse systems are not alike - neither are all mouse users. Values of 1 to 99 are allowed here. Use lower values to make the cursor move faster relative to the mouse. On some installations, making the cursor response too fast will make some pixels on the screen inaccessible. THRESHOLD: This sets the mouse double-speed threshold. Values of 1 to 99 are allowed and higher values mean that you must move the mouse faster to get the double speed effect. (empty box): This activates one of the video modes, it de-activates the other. You may switch video modes while working on a drawing with no ill effect. The new video mode becomes active when you return to the main drawing screen. MODE: This is the actual video mode (in decimal) sent to your video controller board. The standard EGA (16) and VGA (18) values are loaded here by default the first time you run the program. When setting up a new video mode, consult you video controller manual for the proper code (in decimal) to activate that mode. There are no standards for these extended modes, or put another way, there are too many standards. HORIZ: This number is the horizontal resolution that goes with the video mode. The highest value that works appears to be 800. 6-3 VERT: Likewise, this is the corresponding vertical resolution. Numbers up to 600 seem to work here. Video cards that provide modes in exess of 600 by 800 do not conform to the standard memory mapping of bitplanes in 64k byte pages or less in these modes and will not work in these modes. SCHEMATIC: These boxes select height and width for schematic drawings. Since schematics use only a single drawing plane, the sizes are about twice as large as those for double sided layouts. The exact proportions of these are based on "magic numbers" that make access to large memory arrays very fast. If the program THINKS that a drawing is present, it will refuse to allow you to change the size or type of drawing. Go back to the main drawing screen and select <clear> from the D-File menu if you get a beep here. LAYOUT: These work just like the schematic selections above. You need to select the size you want before begining a drawing. The remaining boxes set the colors used in the program. All 64 of the EGA colors are available and all colors used in the program are accessible. The LEFT button advances the color number and the RIGHT button does the reverse. The MIDDLE button sets it to zero (black). These controls "wrap around" at the ends. The colors that these boxes represent are as follows: SCHEM color of drawing for schematics FRONT color of FRONT plane in LAYOUT mode REAR color of REAR plane in LAYOUT mode INTER color of intersections of FRONT and REAR planes BACKGROUND background color throughout program BOARDER color of boarder lines, rulers, and inactive tools CURSOR cursor color HILITE highlighting color used for options, menues, and help windows MENU color for menu bar, coordinates, and ruler legends The remaining boxes are labeled PALETTE 1 thru 7. They select all of the remaining colors used in the program. Of special interest are numbers 1 thru 4. These are used by the icon editor and should all be kept clearly distinct from each other. 7-1 Printing -------- This program comes "ready to run" on an IBM Proprinter (or compatible) or HP LaserJet. If your printer is configured to emulate this standard and you have it connected to the standard printer port (LPT1), you are ready to print. The default setting is for the Proprinter. Select PRINT from the SPECIAL menu and printing will begin. You may hit any key to abort printing. The type of printout that you get will depend on the printer settings on the OPTIONS screen. If you are working on a double-sided drawing, the ACTIVE drawing plane will be printed. Additionally, if you are printing the REAR drawing plane, it will be printed reversed (mirror image). - - - - - - - - - - - - If your printer is not IBM compatible, choose PRINTER from the SPECIAL menu. The printer menu screen will be displayed. See if your printer is listed here. If so, click on the appropriate box and then click on the SAVE box. If your printer is not listed here, you will need to do a custom printer installation. Proceed to the next section to do the installation. Once you have chosen or installed a printer, choose PRINT from the SPECIAL menu to begin printing. 8-1 Custom Printer Installation --------------------------- This screen gives you real 'nuts and bolts' access to how the program utilizes the printer. It was incorporated primarily to allow users to install printer drivers for printers that are not IBM Proprinter compatible. We will be expanding this list ourselves as time goes by. You will need to know all of the appropriate printer codes (see your printer manual) to do a custom installation. To get to the printer installation screen. 1. Select PRINTER from the SPECIAL menu. 2. Select a printer from the PRINTER list. 3. Click on the box marked MODIFY. (the currently selected printer values will be displayed) Let's go over these parameters one at a time. As with the OPTIONS screen, click on a box to access it. If it is a box requiring keyboard input, use the backspace key to remove the old data, type in the new data, and hit the ENTER key to exit the box. All numbers entered in boxes will be assumed to be in decimal unless otherwise indicated (see notes below). If nothing is entered in a box - that particular function will not work, but no other harm will be done. Use spaces to separate codes in a box. PRINTER: Enter a name for the printer here. Anything that fits in the box is fine. UNIDIRECTIONAL: Enter the code sequence that puts your printer in unidirectional printing mode. This code sequence is sent out to the printer each time you begin a printout. For a laser printer, put the print codes here to set the printer in 'Portriat' mode. BIDIRECTIONAL: As in the function above, enter the code sequence here for bidirectional printing. For a laser printer, put the print codes her to set the printer in 'Landscape' mode. 8-2 PRINTER PORT: Select the port for this particular printer. Different printers may be assigned to different ports if desired. The port will automatically be selected when the printer is selected from the printer list. Both serial and parallel printers are supported. Serial printers are expected to perform normal CTS (clear to send) hardware handshaking with the computer. BAUD RATE: Only if you have selected a serial (COM) port will this value be used. It must, of course, match the baud rate that your printer is set to. Values up to 19,200 may work and non-standard values are allowed. (i.e. 2000 baud) INVERT: Some printers use the print wires in the opposite way from others. If every 8 dot section of your printout comes out upside-down, try this option. PRINT INIT: This code sequence is sent out to the printer at the beginning of each printout. Its purpose is to put the printer in the proper graphics mode and is usually used to set the line spacing (how far the printer advances vertically when it receives a linefeed). PRINT SEQ: These are the graphics print sequence codes. The program sends these out at the beginning of each graphic line (8 dots high) of data. It usually tells the printer how many bytes of graphic data are to follow and at what density to print them out. See the NOTES below on using special codes here. NEXT LINE: In order to be as general as possible, the actual codes to perform a carriage return and linefeed are entered here. These codes are sent out at the end of each graphics line. The usual values are 13 (return) and 10 (linefeed) for matrix printers and nothing for laser printers. H-DPI: This is the actual number of hoizontal dots/inch that the above printer codes tell the printer to print. The program uses this number (in conjuntion with the V-DPI value) to know which dots to turn on or off as the line is printed. The result is a printout with the same vertical and horizontal resolution. This is critical to printing board layouts, where the vertical and horizontal scales must be the same. 8-3 V-DPI: Likewise, this is the vertical print resolution. This value is used in conjuction with H-DPI as mentioned above. It is usually 72 for matrix printers. This number also affects the scales on the rulers. V-STEP: This number tells the printer how many pixels to move down the drawing for each graphic line. With this set properly, the printout will be overlapped so that the effects of printer wire and printer ribbon variations will be averaged out. The actual codes to make the printer advance a certain distance are usually incorporated in the PRINT INIT; this number tells the PROGRAM how far down to advance in the drawing. DRAFT INIT / DRAFT SEQ / NEXT LINE / etc. These are the codes used when the DRAFT mode is selected on the OPTIONS screen. They work identically to the normal printing codes above. Help is availible on any of these options. NOTES ----- All numeric values entered in any box are assumed to be in decimal. Other types of values are supported as follows and may be combined (with spaces in between) to form a code sequence. Xdd: An 'X' followed by 2 digits indicates that the value is in hexadecimal. (i.e. X1B is equivalent to 27) 'ccc' Ascii characters (upper and lower case) may be put in single quotes. * 4 ascii decimal digits representing the length (in bytes) of the graphic line are inserted. *L The low order byte of the graphics line length. *H The high order byte of the graphics line length. Example: if a box contains the characters: X1B 'T08' * where the line length (internally calculated by the program) is 240 bytes produces the code sequence (in hexadecimal): 1B 54 30 38 30 32 34 30 with the same line length, the characters: 27 64 *L *H produces the code sequence: 1B 40 E0 00 9-1 Designing ICONS --------------- You will probably want to design some of your own icons. The icon files provided with the program contain some useful examples for you to start with. You may add icons to these files, edit or rename the icons, or create new icon files. There is a limit of 60 icons per file, but you may create any number of files. The ICON EDITOR works much like the expanded display mode (using the PENCIL tool). It displays the currently selected icon in a "blown-up" format and also shows the grid spacing and the hot-spot. To access the icon editor: 1. Choose either EDIT ICON or NEW ICON from the EDIT menu. In either case, the current icon will be displayed. Choosing NEW ICON will cause the icon you create to be added to the list of icons. 2. Click the LEFT button on any square to turn it on. Click the RIGHT button on any square to turn it off. Click the MIDDLE button on any square to place the hot-spot. Some of the squares on the display are displayed in a different color and spaced according to your current GRID setting. These are for visual reference only - they do not control how the icon will be positioned in the drawing. The hot-spot controls how the icon will be positioned relative to the cursor. Remember, the hot-spot of the icon will be placed at the cursor hot-spot when placed in the drawing which locks it to the grid if the GRID toggle is active. You may want to examine some of the icons provided to get an idea of how to place hot-spots. You may click the CLEAR box to clear the display of the icon. This does not affect the actual icon if you are editing one. The DELETE box will remove the ICON from the current list. When you think you have your icon designed the way you want it, you have the following options: SAVE: Stores the modified icon in place of the original. ABORT: Abandons any changes made. SAVE AS: Stores the icon and prompts you for a new name. Any changes made to an icon file are written to disk when you a) Exit the program with DONE/SAVE. b) Load in a new icon file directly. c) Load in a new drawing file that uses a different icon file. 10-1 Tricks and Techniques --------------------- High density schematics In order to get the most 'drawing' in your drawing file, we recommend setting the grid to 5 and using the small "all caps" font. The 'SCHEMAT' icon file was created to work on this grid setting. You should do virtually all of your work with the grid-toggle on (active) so that icons you put in your drawing will be properly positioned when connecting them using the LINE drawing tool. Lines should be spaced 10 pixels apart (2 grid spacings) if you want to be able to put legends on the lines. The "all caps" font was designed to fit between lines spaced this way without touching them. The TEXT writing tool is designed to automatically double-space (move down 2 grid spacings) to the next line when you hit ENTER. In this way you can quickly enter a whole column of legends either in between the lines or at the ends of the lines. Since all text is written in REVERSAL mode, one way to erase text already in the drawing is to simply write over it. This not only erases the text but restores anything that had been "clobbered" (a technical term) by having text written over it. This also allows you to write text in 'white' areas of the drawing. Layout tricks Choose your grid spacing, pad sizes, and linewidth, to allow running traces between pads. Many combinations are possible depending on how daring you are about trace widths and clearances. We have had good results using a linewidth of 2 and a 2 pixel clearance between traces and pads. Working with the grid engaged makes it much easier to "lock on" to traces when moving or erasing them. So have the grid-toggle active when you draw them originally. Pads are normally positioned 2 grid-spacings apart. This allows you to run traces in between them without disengaging the grid. The OUTLINE tool can save you a lot of work in creating pad patterns for ICs. Place a few pads in a line as described above. Use the outline tool to duplicate these and extend the line of pads. When you get the number of pads you want in one line, use the outline tool to duplicate the whole line to form a DIP configuration. On double sided boards you will want the same pads on both sides. Using the RIGHT button with the ICON tool will put the pad on both sides at once. Also, using the RIGHT button with the outline tool will allow you to duplicate and move both FRONT and REAR images at the same time. When choosing an icon orientation on a pad icon, be aware of where the hot-spot is located. For even numbered linewidths, the line drawing tool extends the excess width of lines DOWN and to the RIGHT. hot-spot of the pad icon should always be UP and to the LEFT. Printing from LPT2: etc If your printer is connected to LPT2 rather than LPT1, access the custom printer installation screen, click on LPT2 and then click on SAVE. In the same way you can use COM1 thru COM4 to drive serial printers, but in this case you must also set the baud rate to match your printer. Serial data is sent out as 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. Making circuit cards Once you produce the printout of a circuit card, there are several options for making the actual board. Some photocopy machines do reductions and also can duplicate on special transparent sheets (dont feed ordinary platic sheets through a photocopier!). The images that result can be used with positive photo resist kits from electronic supply houses. This will get you single sided boards "on the cheap". We have even heard of people makeing a reduction on ordinary copier paper, soaking it in vegetable oil, and getting enough light transmission through it to make home brew boards. Circuit board fabricators usually want negative images already scaled to size. These can be produced by local photo graphics companies from your printouts. They will need to know whether you want positive or negative transparencies and what the reduction scale is. The cost is about $5 - $10 per transparency. 10-2 Extending the Help file The file HELP.TXT (used by the program for context sensitive help) is an ordinary text file. Two special markers are used in the help file to allow the program to find specific help screens by number. Here is an example of a section of the file - @14 The OUTLINE tool moves,copies,and deletes rectangular areas. Press $120=button on one corner of the area and $77=drag the mouse to the opposite corner. An outline will appear. Now position the cursor inside the outline and hold down - LEFT button to move the area RIGHT button to copy the area See: $35=Edit $120=(more) @120 In LAYOUT mode, use LEFT button to select area on currently active plane. Use RIGHT button to select area on both planes. The size of the area you can outline is determined by the amount of free memory available. $14=(back) The '@14' is used to mark the beginning of this help window. The program is coded to look for this number if you have just clicked on the outline tool and then clicked on Help. The help window will display all of the text until the next '@' is encountered. The dollar ($) signs are used to tag the highlighted words that vector you directly to other help windows. An equal (=) sign separates the vector number from the highlighted word. To create additional help windows, put a new vector in an existing help window and then create a text block in the help file marked with that number. Here are the rules: 49 characters per line maximum 10 lines per window maximum (including blank lines) Don't use tabs - use spaces only The order of the help numbers doesn't matter Help numbers must be from 1 to 199 The end of the help file is marked with '@999'