At job I have access to Protel 99SE, but never used it before, I used OrCAD in the past.
I want to ask if learning the "old" Protel 99SE will be somehow helpful for using Altium at a basic level sometime in the future, or Altium is totally different? Learning Protel is usefull now, or Altium is much more advanced and special training is required?
in the end they are all tools.
I have used protel and ORCAD the concept is the same you need to see which suits you.
If you need to go from ORCAD to protel or Altium I advise you to go to Altium after all it is a revised version
check this for moving from protel to altium
I will study briefly Protel. So far I only have Protel at work.
I was interested about similarity because these days everyone talks about Altium, and I may need to use it in the future.
I would say that you learn Protel as it is only going to be a value addition in your profile.
As far as Altium is concerned it is merger of Protel and PCAD so learning protel will only make it easier for you to work on Altium in future.