Re: gEDA-user: lost newbie

[Al Davis <ad82@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday 07 January 2006 06:50 pm, John Doty wrote:
> This is much too complex a circuit to be your first SPICE
> sim. I   suggest starting much smaller. Seriously consider
> verifying that resistors follow Ohm's law for your first try
> (no, I am not trying to insult you: SPICE is *hard* to use).

I think Marc's professor has a problem.

Gnucap is much easier to start on than any Spice, and takes the 
same netlists, so you see some of the same issues less 
painfully.

I am guessing that Marc is a student, studying EE in college, 
and is taking a course that might be called something like 
"electronics-1", and is just now getting to power supply 
circuits.  I'm also guessing that his teacher doesn't know 
simulation very well, and Marc wants to know more than his 
professor is giving him.

I try to introduce simulation early, when topics like Ohm's law 
and Kirchoff's laws are new.  When done at this time, I can 
introduce simulation in 10 minutes, with the netlist, and all 
text.

Most profs that I know wait until electronics, at the diode or 
one-transistor level.  Then they use something that hides the 
netlist, usually the PSPICE demo.  The books are written for 
it, and they too hide the netlist.  It takes them about 3 
classes to introduce it to the one transistor level, and they 
still can't use a netlist.  Then they drop it because it is 
unimportant, and is considered to be a nuisance.

Then later, in another course, they need to do more.  They never 
learn that you can use the simulator to see things you can't 
see in the lab.  Homework assignments are cut down so they fit 
the PSPICE demo.  They still never see the netlist.

At some point, they move to something like Cadence or Mentor, 
which has the multiple programs like gEDA.  They can't run it 
at home, so they limit their exposure to it, struggle for days 
with it.  It is as hard to use as gEDA.  Even at this point, 
they still are not past what oregano and Spice 3f5 can do.

Help!