Where is the documentation?

[Windancer87]

On the site index I get either page not found or nothing under the parent diretory heading. Ex. When I click on the Landpattern calculator I go to the next page and there is nothing there except the link back to parent directory.

Jennifer

[Tom]

Jennifer,

We're looking into the library documentation download link right now. It should be working soon.

As far as the Land Pattern Calculator, it's becoming a "For Sale" product and we are working on the marketing verbiage for it that will be posted today.

The new calculator will become a super calculator with many new features. There will be a Demo Version posted today. All the application notes should be posted today. (I don't want to ruin the marketing blitz on this, so we'll just have to wait) I think you'll really like it.

[Windancer87]

That's nice for those who have the funds to purchase. Where I work funds are not there so I have to rely on free stuff.

Is the last updated version of the land patern calculator available before this new enhanced version comes out?

[Tom]

Jennifer,

The new calculator's starting price is only $99 and includes one year free updates that will be automatically be sent out to all customers.

I know what you mean by not having any money, neither do we. The calculator developer is unemployed and depending on this to pay his rent. We have 2 choices: 1. Do not develop the calculator (because of lack of funding) or 2. Sell it cheap, add a ton of new features and feed the person who is creating it.

As far as posting the last free calculator, we'll have to discuss this with the product developer and the webmaster.

[randychase]

Jennifer, you have mail (and don't forget to update your mail when it changes!) I updated your's.

As a general note, this is my take on this. PCBstandards started out because Tom and I disliked the duplication of effort. There was way too much waste going on with 20,000 people making their own library parts and start/cam files, etc.

It was idealistic for sure. We would all agree that everyone should share in this library development. I offered to create a website to host it. And we would see what happens.

What did happen was that the number of people sharing anything was extremely low. In retrospect, I think I can understand why that is, but in any case, we had to make all our own parts. This represented a LOT of man hours..thousands and thousands. If it was not for Wind River stepping up and supporting the project, I doubt it could have happened.

Wind River funded the project to many thousands of dollars in return for only name recognition.

The other thing that happened is the popularity of the data. We expected we would get some interest, but not as much as we got. Over 1 million hits and many gigabytes of data EACH MONTH. That is why I temporarily took off the library documentation from the site (it's back now)... because we could not handle it. A couple weeks ago, some users were downloading 50 files at a time and it was bringing the server to it's knees.

We went from a web domain, to a virtual hosted server, to a dedicated server, to now having two dedicated servers pushing over 400 gigs per month.

But that had a cost. And I spent about $10,000 last year. We didn't recoup much in the way of that. No sugar daddy has stepped forward like Mentor to foot the bill. I am not really complaining, just trying to explain the situation.

The other issue is that the primary people (beyond Tom and I) that created the library and programs and files were laid off from Wind River. No more support. No more programs. Unless we could offer some of these things for sale and keep these people fed.

We are working to develop OTHER things that we can sell and maybe help support the people and the site. In the meantime, they created this cool calculator which we think is going to be worth far more than $99.

Tough thing. I would love to just give everything away. The other issue is that I actually have to work more designing pcbs, in order to support the site. But the site needs more of my time. Ack! :)

We don't want to stop the people from getting tools and files. But we have had to make some changes, and we will probably be making some more.

We will stick to one thing though, our core database which is the Metric Library will remain a free download as long as we can. And we will continue to grow that, to improve it, and offer it to other CAD systems.

[Windancer87]

People know a good thing when they see it and it spreads faster than the wildfires in California.


Jennifer