[NTLK] New Software Announcement

WWW.old-sock.co.uk, my little corner of the web - where Apple Newton meets
Arizona Microship - is pleased to announce the arrival of fleXYcad(v2.2).

Very few people know of this site. The page-count hardly moves. But that's
because I have been too busy writing the software, and debugging it, and
testing it. Anyway, I think its probably worth a little more advertising, as
fleXYcad now does something very useful. It can make small PCBs. Printed
circuit boards. Small electronic circuits can be tapped out, and printed to
a laser-printer, and a turned into a PCB loaded with components. I made my
first board a few days ago. I was so, so, happy. I still can't believe it.

Actually, fleXYcad is a partner to fleXYlog, and the two go together.
FleXYlog arrived first, but alone it doesn't really do anything, unless you
are happy to type in sin(5.7)*log(3.6) and see the answer to 15 decimal
places. FleXYlog turns the Newton into a small-scale oscilloscope, or a
chart-recorder, for data-logging.

But fleXYlog needs numbers to process and display. Numbers are expected
through the Newton's serial port.
That's where fleXYcad comes in. Designing circuits can be chore, and I hope
fleXYcad will speed things up. A small PIC-chip circuit (to send numbers
into the Newton) can be tapped out in fleXYcad and turned into a PCB layout,
ready for printing. Volts, pressure, frequency, heart-beats - they're all
just numbers.

The software is only hobby-interest stuff, so there's a few rough-edges,
some non-Newton ways of doing things, and a few bugs to sort out, and a few
more features to add.

I'd be grateful for any feedback via the www.old-sock feedback form (a link
off the download page) if there's any problem that needs fixing. And if
anyone actually uses the software and thinks a new feature would be useful
then I'd be happy to hear that too (but timescales will be rather elastic).

Thank you for your attention, and also a big thank-you to Adriano at
notwen.com for suggesting the idea of making fleXYcad print. I would never
have tried to do it, and I told him it was impossible ... :-)

Bob Redknap
http://www.old-sock.co.uk
data-logging software for the Newton

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/