[geeks] Circuit Simulation Software

[Dave Kimmel]

On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Dave McGuire wrote:

>   I've plotted resist ink onto copper-clad board with an HP7475A
> plotter.  It's also a trivial matter to print a PCB layout on a laser
> printer and transfer it to photo-resist; done that lots of times.

PCB layouts with a laser printer sounds like something I'd love to be able
to do.  Would you happen to have any pointers for someone who wants to get
started with this?  I've got no idea where to get the boards and
chemicals, but I'm sure that finding a small enough bit for my Dremel
wouldn't be tough.  I used to have a Radio Shack kit that had two copper
clad boards, a pen, some chemicals, and a few other useful things, but I
can't seem to find anything of the sort any more.  Active Electronics
might have the chemicals (never looked closely), but they don't have the
copper clad boards.

Wiring things up on Radio Shack boards (grid of holes, copper rings around
each one) is terribly time consuming and headache inducing.  Wiring 6 LED
digits in parallel (except the common, of course) sucked incredibly.  I
was rewarded with a somewhat nifty clock in the end though.

ObSlightlyRelatedQuestion:  Does anyone know of any good and free/cheap
high level languages that will target a PIC processor?  PIC assembly is
getting annoying now that I've done things big enough to worry about page
size issues.  Also, has anyone used the Warp13 PIC programmer?  Is it
worth the money or should I look for better?

TIA,
-- Dave Kimmel
   criscokid at v-wave.com
   ICQ: 5615049