
CircuitLab - online schematic editor & circuit simulator - microtherion
https://www.circuitlab.com/
======
simonbarker87
I found CircuitLab a few weeks ago and was impressed with it. I have little
need to simulate simple circuits with discrete components - what would be
amazing is if this could be the start of a system that could include micro
controllers - in my dream world these micro controllers would be programmable
with the code you would write if you had the physical micro controller and the
simulation would allow you to fully prototype an embedded system without
having to fight with physical circuit issues (like: oh crap i've put this
transistor in the wrong way round - that's why it's not worked for the last
hour).

Sadly I don't think this dream solution will ever exist - maybe just for a
PIC16F690 or and mbed?

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bencevans
Looks good I've tried a few local application based software applications but
this has the feature that they're lacking/not as full as I wish and that's the
custom parts.

I havn't been doing anything major, just wanted a PIC board as I have to
include on in an AS Level Project.

Brilliant timing cause it's due in in two days and was going to start final
diagrams tomorrow. Cheers!

~~~
compumike
(Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) That's the second time we've
heard a story like that! The first was from someone on Reddit making a "rage
comic" titled "Lab report saved": <http://imgur.com/4E8qP> from
[http://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/comments/s3yik/l...](http://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/comments/s3yik/lab_report_saved/)
Good luck with your project.

~~~
dhughes
Oh the irony, I have to beef up my electronics for work so I blocked Reddit to
keep me off it then I see this on HN.

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viraptor
Very similar to what MITx 6.002 offers in the lab. Even the interface /
interaction is quite similar. Is there any connection between those projects?

~~~
compumike
(Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) We've been in touch with the
group at MIT that designed the browser-based circuit simulator for their
online 6.002x course, but there is no official relationship between the two
projects at this time.

~~~
evoxed
But don't worry, CircuitLab has been very popular with all the 6.002 people in
IRC! The MITx interface is not without its share of bugs.

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MichailP
This is an interesting project, however having your simulations and schematics
in a cloud does seem a little bit careless for any serious work. It doesn't
seem like a real alternative for various version of PSPice and other software.
Am I missing something?

~~~
compumike
(Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) I believe a parallel question
would be: are the "serious work" users avoiding cloud-based software such as
Google Docs, Dropbox, Github, Basecamp, and even Gmail?

~~~
josephhardin
Honestly, somewhat. Dropbox and Gmail are seen as fine with less sharing with
the internet and more about just having your personal service online, whereas
things like Google Docs and Github less so. Even then, you try to avoid using
Gmail to send sensitive material(Not to mention actually sensitive in a legal
sense).

~~~
compumike
I think you and viraptor are right -- the answer is still "yes/somewhat" to
avoiding hosted solutions for a lot of people, and especially companies. Ten
years ago, many small-medium businesses had their own IT staff running an
email server, file storage, and maybe even a little intranet site. Many still
do, but I'd guess the fraction has gone down significantly as companies slowly
get comfortable moving some of their bits out of the building. (Key word is
_slowly_.)

But it's happening: I'm sure there are tens of thousands of HN readers who
today keep their important data in hosted source code repositories, hosted
accounting/invoicing packages, hosted CRM services, hosted e-mail services ...
where both the software and the data do not necessarily live on their own
machine. It hasn't happened as much in creative or engineering tools yet, but
in my opinion, that's rapidly about to change as browsers become more and more
capable platforms for powerful apps.

Furthermore, the line between "my software" and "cloud software" is being
quickly blurred from both sides. From the existing desktop players, consider
Adobe's Creative Suite becoming a subscription service / SaaS
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877191>). And from the web apps side,
consider that if we knew that people were willing to pay enough for it to be
worth our time, we could package up CircuitLab to run as an offline app
(already in the Chrome Web Store, but requires connection right now
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/haghanbgfkfpmepooh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/haghanbgfkfpmepoohpigmglbfejljoj)).

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jopython2
Wish I had access to this 22 years ago for my electronics degree :(

~~~
phodo
+1, like so many other things these days... access is so critical: a) in a
developing country, access = access to education tools (like stanford's online
courses, udemy, etc.) b) in developed countries, access = access to tools that
can serve as "force multipliers" in terms of enabling creativity,
understanding, low cost entrepreneurship

tl;dr: we are living in the Age of Access.

~~~
nitrogen
The next steps are access to capital and access to connections, or innovations
that make social connections and large investments obsolete. Places like YC
and TechStars help with these for a small subset of the population, so we're
off to a decent start.

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will_lam
Interesting. Very similar to another YC company, <http://upverter.com> though

~~~
catch23
probably less so... upverter won't simulate it. circuit lab does look like a
useful tool though -- great way for kids to learn who probably don't have
access to pspice or oscilloscopes.

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droithomme
Really nice implementation, excellent work guys.

