My CAD Software

This is a list of what I use for CAD/CAE and other technical things. Most are freely downloadable.

EDA

An EDA application is used for drawing schematics, PC-boards and the like. This list is likely to be undergoing drastic changes in the next while as I revamp my EDA suite.

Oregano: Nice little Linux-based schematic capture and simulation package using spice. Kind of buggy, and has been discontinued in favor of GAEL. Which is sort-of a shame, because GAEL is still very early alpha.
KLogic: KLogic is a cute little Linux-based interactive schematic capture and digital simulation package. Handy, but I don't really use it anymore.
TkGate: TkGate is a much more powerful interactive circuit layout/simulation package. It does basically everything that KLogic does, plus it saves Verilog files and has a much more powerful simulator for complex digital designs.
Eagle: Powerful program for schematic capture and PC-board layout, for both Linux and Windows (I use both interchangably). This has been suggested to me a dozen times, right after I actually started using it. It's a nice program, but it's not exactly free. I'm currently investigating other options.
XCircuit: Cute little program for schematic capture. As a drawing program, it is excellent. It generates rather nice quality output for printing or manual generation. It can generate Spice and PCB netlists, but these options both leave much to be desired. I'm not currently using this one.
PSpice (Student Edition): Very powerful but highly crippled schematic capture and simulation package using spice, for Windows. I have stopped using this one.
Xilinx WEBPack (with ModelSim XE Starter): Quite complete program for VHDL/Verilog entry, simulation, and compilation of digital designs (primarily targetted at FPGA's and CPLD's), for Windows. This is very capable software, and is essentially not crippled in any way (there are some limitations in ModelSim, but I have yet to encounter them).
MPLAB: Full-featured programming suite for the Microchip line of microcontrollers (PIC16F84 for instance), for Windows. I stopped using this when IO was retired.

General CAD

Some software to whip up simple technical drawings.

QCad: A nice little Linux 2D CAD program. Relatively complete. You are not likely to find a much better free CAD program than this one.

Mathematical

Programs for doing math. This list may see an addition or two in the near future, as I am currently investigating a symbolic algebra package.

Scilab: VERY nice Matlab-style mathematical package. VERY complete, and FREE! This is, without a doubt, one of the finest pieces of scientific software available for free. Oddly enough, it's mostly written in Fortran!

Productivity

Some miscellaneous software I use.

OpenOffice.org: Really cool office application for Windows and Linux. I just installed the Linux version, and am phasing out my VMWare'd Windows.
Bochs: Bochs is similar, but different, to VMWare. Unlike VMWare, Bochs is an emulator, instead of a virtualizer, so I can configure it to emulate a whole pile of different machines. I've been using it lately to test Cy/VOS. It may also be possible to use Bochs as a testbed for virtual hardware, to allow for driver development without physical devices, but this is for the future.
VMWare: You guessed it, VMWare, this is how I run Windows without trashing my machine. The demo is a free download, but the application is EXPENSIVE!!! $300US is a little rich for my blood. The demo is good, but only works for 30 days. And they stopped renewing demo licenses. So you'll have to be creative.

All material on these pages is Copyright (c) Jennifer E. Elaan.