PROTEL Autotrax/Easytrax video drivers

These files are video drivers for the Protel Autotrax, Easytrax and dos schematic products. These video drivers only work with VESA BIOS video cards - most name brand video cards have this - although you may just have to download the updated VESA DRIVER from your video card manufacturer. If you have a newer system that does not support Vesa, but runs XP, you might consider trialing our new Autotrax XP video driver.

The only original protel video driver that will otherwise work reliably on modern hardware is VGA640.DRV

Basic Instructions to Install Autotrax and use these drivers:
• Copy file and rename as GRAPH.DRV in autotrax directory
• Make a .PIF shortcut (or other as appropriate) to autotrax
• Edit the Cmd line and working directory to match autotrax
• Select "Screen: Usage: Full-screen"
• Optionally: It may help to have mouse set to "exclusive"
• Optionally: I select "Run program minimized"

• Try your install with the standard VGA640 driver first
  
  • Problems? Use path test tool , then try shortening PATH
• Download and install your video cards up-to-date VESA driver
  • Problems? Use vesa test tool , then try downloading drivers
• After installing your new GRAPH.DRV, try alt-tabbing
  • Problems, or works OK? Either way, email and tell us.

These drivers, to atleast 1024x768, have also been run under XP, win2k, OS2 and dosemu 1.02.0 on suse8.1 kernel 2.4.19 and debian. However, under XP you really do need a graphics card - just about all "on board" graphics solutions do not have VESA support, so you will be reduced to using autotrax with a resolution of just 640x480. The 640x480 is the standard driver supplied with autotrax (vga640) and seems to work with just about any system.

This driver is hereby released into the public domain, and you can do what you like with it with no obligation. It was written by Steve Murray of AirBorn, and is open source. These drivers may well be updated, check back on this webpage, periodically, for new versions: www.airborn.com.au/layout/easytrax.html

If when first trying this driver your monitor makes an unusual noise, or the picture is badly distorted EXIT THE PROTEL PROGRAM - or turn off your monitor, - we don't want you to blow a fuse or anything! The key sequence for exiting Dos Protel is [Esc] [Esc ] [F] [Q] [Y] - write this down, obviously you won't be able to read this when you are trying the driver!

VESA640 - 640 x 480 VESA mode 101h
VESA800 - 800 x 600 VESA mode 103h
VESA1024 - 1024 x 768 VESA mode 105h
VESA1280 - 1280 x 1024 VESA mode 107h
VESA1400 - 1400 x 1050 VESA mode 140h (common laptop size)
VESA1600 - 1600 x 1200 VESA mode 120h
VGA640 - Original Protel 640 x 480 VGA driver
Download whole package in a zipped file (easyvido.zip)

I would appreciate feedback when you use these drivers -
- what is the brand and model of your video card,
- your Operating System (esp. if it is XP or w2k!)
- did the driver work satisfactorily.

If you have problems with one of these drivers, the first thing to do is to try one with lower resolution. The next thing to try - and I would suggest doing this even if the driver seems to work perfectly - is to get the latest version of VESA driver for your video card. These are usually available from the video card manufacturers web site (try a Google search).

Some of the weirdest problems have been fixed by updating the video card driver - for instance garbage left after screen redraw would seem very much like a hardware problem, yet two users have had this fixed by downloading a new manufacturers vesa video driver. Sometimes problems are fixed by changing system settings - but its pretty rare, only "run full screen" seems to really matter. I have found on some systems that the screen refresh rate is much faster (less flicker) if I am using a driver with the same resolution as my windows screen settings.

About half of all users seem to have significant problems running under XP and the probable reason seems to be that the path environment variable is longer than about 56/66 characters. Detail here for info on this problem.

Getting the VESA drivers working on XP laptops can also be problematic, even when they do claim to have VESA support. On one laptop, I found that the driver would come alive by: Run autotrax (but see just black), alt-tab back to windows, click twice on the Autotrax tab in the start bar, then press Function-F2. Beats me as to why this works - Function-F2 was normally used to swop to external video.

There have been a few installs where computers have not correctly redrawn the screen after Alt-Tab switching. If the suggestions above don't sort out the problems, try the modeforce drivers VnnnnMDF.DRV - but try the VESAnnnn.DRV drivers first, as the modeforce drivers have a distinct performance penalty. Sorry to tell you about all the problems first, with this advice, 95% of installs should work first time.

Links to other Autotrax material

• Protel Autotrax free download page
  
• Protel Printer drivers - print to pcx format
  
• David L Jones very good How-to guide to PCB layout ...personally I like this manual very much, and recommend it to anyone doing layout - it has been a long time since I have seen such good common sense advice all in one place
  
• Patch for smoother zoom on traxedit - makes SMD layout easier
  
• Protel DOS support notes - Lengthy document
  
• Protel Autotrax useage issues (aka bugs, by AirBorn)
  
• Up-to-date Autotrax Libraries
• Laser PC Advanced Plot for Autotrax (PostScript, features++)
• VESA mode test program Tests your PC's VESA support mirror
• RCS Radio Easytrax libraries & info download
  
• Autotrax utilities by Richard Aston including component rotator, circle-of-pads tool, Gerber file generator.
• Jim Patchells Autotrax Utility collection(etc) with C source - incl Back annotation
• Paul Fincato's BMP to PCB converter - put your logo on your PCB!
• Morse keyer PCB project
  
• German User's Guide with Examples
  
• David L. Jones' projects - some PCBs
  
• Open Collector lots of open source electronic design tools.
• gEDA - a gnu EDA project - ...a little bit slow in getting going...
  
• A tutorial on PCB layout specifically using the Autotrax package
• Another tutorial on PCB layout, by AirBorn.

Recently an English company (run by Ilija Kovacevic) has started using the Autotrax name - his package is not compatible with Protel Autotrax.

Source code for these drivers (X86 assembler) GRDRVSRC.ZIP

This page was last updated 01 Jan 2008