[SOLVED] does anybody use TINA 9.3? I've got some questions...

I'm really liking the demo version of TINA 9.3 and am seriously considering buying the beginner version of that... but it limits you to "100 nodes." I'm currently going through a book on digital fundamentals, and some of the circuits in there get pretty busy... 5 or 6 ICs at a time... I just know I'm going to lose it if I hit this limit. The problem is while the entry level "professional - home use only" version is like $89... the next level up is $600. ouch! So my question in a long winded fashion is... what constitutes a node and how often do you suppose I'm going to max out on that. Also, should I consider the "educational" version, which is only $39?

Thanks,

Mark

ok, nobody. well, i'm going to answer my own question in the hope that one day it helps somebody... instead of using TINA with it's ridiculous 100 node limit, check out CircuitMaker Student. It's awesome!

**broken link removed**

It seems to no longer be supported and will only run on XP but it's got pretty much everything including animated 7 segment displays, LEDs, and logic levels... no having to import simple libraries like the 7400 series or CD4000 series (ahem, LTspice!), no restrictions on nodes (ahem TINA!), and best of all, no insanely expensive price tag (ahem TINA, Proteus, orCAD, MultiSim and holy heck... MicroCap... $4500?!?!?! are you out of your minds?)

I think no one answered the question because hardly anyone uses Tina. For a free simulator I would suggest LTspice.

Keith

I saw that you can download the TI version of TINA free. Don't know how good it is or how different.
https://www.ti.com/tool/tina-ti&DCMP=hpa_amp_general&HQS=Other+OT+tina-ti

re: TINA... it's not a bad product... I think they've just hamstrung themselves by this 100 node limitation. You are going to run into that really quick. They've also not thought out the pricing very well. The version they call "classic" should be under $200 to tempt people like me to use it. Then, the heavy duty industrial version... the one your company is going to pay for because it needs it to do business should be more expensive. Also, the TINA-TI version is even more limited than the demo version... it doesn't have the animation feature which I personally think is very cool. It's so easy to see if your logic circuit is working right if you see the 7 segment displays actually correctly adding up your number or whatever. The thought of trying to figure out if you've added something right by scoping the individual segments (like you'd have to do in LTspice) is... discouraging to say the least.

I've used LTspice a lot... and I just think it's terrible. It's terrible because you have to arduously go out and find all these everyday components... from the extremely questionable source of the Yahoo! users group. If I had a nickel for every component I found on there, threw into my sub / sym / dig whatever folder, only to find out it doesn't work... well heck... I could afford a much fancier simulation program. I have learned SO much from simply watching currents flow around in the Falstad java applet... and quickly debugged a circuit in CircuitMaker because I could actually see the LEDs going on and off, see the logic levels jumping from low to high... it just leaves LTspice in the dust.

Anyway... my rant.

a final due diligence note regarding Tina. I e-mailed DesignSoft (did you know they are based in Budapest?) and told them about my experience with their software (node restriction, price) and urged them to reconsider their approach. This is the e-mail I received:

"Hello,

Thank you for your comments and I’m sorry to hear that you decided not to purchase Tina. Yes, you are right 100 nodes are not too many if you want to use complex subcircuits. That’s why we increse this limit to 200 in the new version of Tina which will be released soon.

And this limit is also 200 in the cloud version of Tina.

Regards
Tibor Horvath"

Like I said earlier, I think TINA 9.3 is good software, and with the limit of nodes raised to 200, would probably suffice for most students.

I can see TINA being good for student instruction because of its many interactive modes.