Veroboard designer

Is there a ‘Veroboard’ designer for RISC OS?

Rick had a go at a version for Windows – could a version for RISC OS be done?

There is a program for Windows – that does auto routing from a net list.

How is auto routing achieved?

Thanks

RiscPCB?
http://www.mbelect.co.uk/RISCOS/

There is also !Layout by Bernhard Walter – old, and no autorouting IIRC.

http://www.arcsite.de/hp/bw/software.html

Rick had a go at a version for Windows – could a version for RISC OS be done?

Probably. It might look better too, as it would be logical to layout using DrawFiles so they can be scaled as required without a loss of resolution.
It’s something I’d like to do, but sadly it’s probably something I’ll never do. Don’t have that sort of free time any more. Much of VeroDes was written before I found work, so I could dedicate lots of time to writing it. All-nighters, even. ;-)

How is auto routing achieved?

It is a logic problem. You have a list of components and a list of interconnections. There are probably about as many patents as there are autorouters, but it basically comes down to taking the components and trying to work out the most effective way to link them all together. Effective is often described as “least through-hole connections or wire links” or “smallest board size”. Sometimes you can let the software place the components, so it has greater freedom in component placement.
What usually happens is that the auto-router will use some sort of variable metric to define a starting condition, and it will try to lay out the tracks several times in different ways (by changing its metric) and will remember the results so it can offer the most optimal layout.
Then you get into seriously complicated issues like digital/analogue sectioning, and the weirdness that is radio waves, as the WiFi “antenna” on the Pi Zero W effectively demonstrates (it is triangular emptiness!).

I had a brief look into autorouting for VeroDes, but given the specifics of veroboard (horizontal tracks, one copper side, fiddly to do track breaks, easy to arrive at a plethora of wire links), I ditched the idea. Anybody using veroboard is unlikely to be creating something they can’t route themselves… ;-)

Can you not get double sided Veroboard any more? With the tracks on one side going lengthways, and widthways on the other side? I’ve still got some somewhere I think, but it’s probably pretty tarnished by now – had it in my synthesizer-building days forty years ago…

Anybody using veroboard is unlikely to be creating something they can’t route themselves…

Very true.

I hand routed all Microvitec’s PCBs for their monitors for the company’s first couple of years. Positioned all the components too. (I did not design the circuits. SM did that. But it was up to me to make sure the mains, the HT, and the signal paths were kept well apart, and to minimize wire links (single sided boards!) – not Veroboard, of course…