PCB CAD Programs

[Alexandre Souza]

>    Does anyone have any recommendations for a reasonably priced schematics
>capture and layout program for either Windows or Mac OSX that can autoroute
>do boards up to say 6² x 8²? When I say reasonable, I¹m thinking $250 or
>less.

    Good options are:

    - Eagle. Not too expensive in the "non-profit" version with boards up to 
16x10 if I'm not mistaken. The UI is clunky and the autorouter does it work 
in double sided boards.
    - Diptrace. "work in progress" but a GREAT program, tons of libraries 
(and convert eagle libraries to it!) and the developer is very active and 
responsive for all kind of questions and bug reports. Made me delay the 
purchase of the eagle license
    - Circad - Best of all, but doesn't do autorouter (which I don't need 
anyways) and very, very expensive. Ugh.
    - Protel - there is a 30 day "trial" which you can build your board :o)
    - KCad. Free but a good program, worth a look.

    I'd stick with diptrace. I see nothing better than it