Cadence (OrCAD) Capture vs System Capture

Hmmm...I was told the same thing and realized whoever came up with that idea has no concept of what the tools do.  I've been on Allegro since the early 90's and see no useful purpose for system capture.

Can I ask what was the reason you were told this? Were you having issues with capture that that was their reply? To me, V17.4 Capture is a complete disaster...Sure there a re a few features I like but overall it's almost unusable.

May I ask what areas of System Capture you find not useful? I've been a Cadence AE for 32 years and began my career using Valid products in the mid 80s. I've seen several evolutions of the schematic authoring solutions over these years. I've used DE-HDL much more than OrCAD Capture during this time and find System Capture to be much easier to use than DE-HDL. I'd like to better understand your perspective.

Have you been using system capture to interface on a daily basis with customers that use OrCAD capture? You send them OrCAD capture format files that they can read / edit and import their OrCAD capture files? Have you been exporting PADS netlists from system capture to interface with customer that use PADS PCB? Have you been able to import your OrCAD cis database that has thousands of parts into it? OrCAD capture was created for a reason. At one time it was the most powerful schematic capture program out there due to its easy user interface and compatibility with PADS (which had a much larger footprint at the time). System capture isn't going to happen. Maybe all this can be done easily with system capture and I just don't know but it sure doesn't look like it to me so far. It might someday if Cadence makes it work and feel more like OrCAD capture but for now it is not an option for us using the tools. What I'd really like is for Cadence to put some real effort into V17.4...which is without a doubt the most bug riddled version I've ever seen. And I was one of the very first OrCAD Capture customers.

Jerry, I too have been on the tools that long and system capture makes no sense.  It feels like a poorly rebundled attempt at Concept schematic.  Concept was a good idea and it had some cool features such as ASCII definition files which could easily be scripted.  But drawing was more complex than OrCAD at the time.  Across multiple companies, engineers always migrated towards OrCAD and eventually Cadence bought OrCAD.  Why?  It's a better tool and easier to use.

From a blank slate, I can be up and running on OrCAD in little time whereas with Concept (system capture) it takes days....why would I do this when my company operates on effective results?  OrCAD is still the easiest tool out there even though it got gutted back at 17.2.50 ish....for no reason whatsoever other than the team dorking with it had no clue what its power was.   Cadence needs to tune in to its user base and figure what works and what doesn't