Altera: Maxplus rules!

I have a Maxplus design which is a year or more old which was compiled with 
Maxplus.  So far so good.  I am required to make a small alteration.

The licence has expired and Maxplus seems obsolete so my only option is to 
download Quartus.

Oh dear - I have never come across such a long winded process to convert 
things to Quartus.

After all the changes - Lo and behold it won't fit!

Is this called progress?

What on earth is wrong with allowing the use of "outdated" software for 
"outdated" designs? 

Fred wrote:
> I have a Maxplus design which is a year or more old which was compiled with 
> Maxplus.  So far so good.  I am required to make a small alteration.
> 
> The licence has expired and Maxplus seems obsolete so my only option is to 
> download Quartus.

  Are you saying Altera cannot/willnot generate a non timebombed license 
for this ?
  I thought that nonsense was in the past, and that all tools vendors 
allowed changes to designs, if not whole new designs.

  Someone told me recently there was a legal precedent to this
'denial of design database' access aspect as well.

> 
> Oh dear - I have never come across such a long winded process to convert 
> things to Quartus.
> 
> After all the changes - Lo and behold it won't fit!

and that is not as uncommon as we would hope.
This, and other version control reasons, are the compelling reason for 
NOT timebombing EDA software.

> 
> Is this called progress?
> 
> What on earth is wrong with allowing the use of "outdated" software for 
> "outdated" designs? 

Nothing, and many do that. I thought Altera was one of them ?

-jg

Hi Fred,

> The licence has expired and Maxplus seems obsolete so my only option is to
> download Quartus.

That's nonsense. If you have a valid subscription, Altera will still give
you Maxplus features in the license. If the features were not in your
latest license, you can simply request them.

Best regards,


Ben

Fred wrote:

> I have a Maxplus design which is a year or more old which was compiled with
> Maxplus.  So far so good.  I am required to make a small alteration.
> 
> The licence has expired and Maxplus seems obsolete so my only option is to
> download Quartus.
> 
> Oh dear - I have never come across such a long winded process to convert
> things to Quartus.
> 
> After all the changes - Lo and behold it won't fit!
> 
> Is this called progress?
> 
> What on earth is wrong with allowing the use of "outdated" software for
> "outdated" designs?

Fred,
And if you even have problems getting a new license for the MaxPlus, as others
suggest....

An easy work around is to simply set back the date on your computer. Has
it's problems, but works fine here for getting MaxPlus to run. (You won't want 
to have "email" simultaneously running on the same machine, for example.) 
You may want to get a copy of "touch" off the 'net to mess with source 
file time & dates to solve any file time dependency issues. Take a look at 
the license.dat file -- found it my Max II install directory, YMMV --
to see what the expiration date is to see how far back you need to push your 
clock.

On Mon, 09 May 2005 15:03:28 +0100, Fred wrote:

> I have a Maxplus design which is a year or more old which was compiled with 
> Maxplus.  So far so good.  I am required to make a small alteration.
> 
> The licence has expired and Maxplus seems obsolete so my only option is to 
> download Quartus.
> 

A quick look at the Altera website gives links for downloading Maxplus and
getting a license for it.  They make it clear that they recommend moving
to Q2, and that Maxplus is for legacy designs only, but they also make it
simple to download and license.  Did you actually try getting a new
license, or did you just assume that "obsolete" means "unobtainable" ?

http://www.altera.com/support/licensing/free_software/lic-max2baseline.jsp


> Oh dear - I have never come across such a long winded process to convert 
> things to Quartus.
> 
> After all the changes - Lo and behold it won't fit!
> 
> Is this called progress?

Given that Altera estimates a slight improvement on fitting on average
when switching from Maxplus to Q2, I'd guess their support people would be
interested in seeing the design and finding out what went wrong.

> 
> What on earth is wrong with allowing the use of "outdated" software for 
> "outdated" designs?

Altera does not have any policy to stop users from using our legacy
MAX+PLUS II software. We do encourgae users to take advantage of the
latest Quartus II software performance and features but there is
nothing to stop you from continuing to use MAX+PLUS II software.

If you purchased an Altera subscription package your license should be
perpetual i.e. it will work even after expiration. If you downloaded
the free MAX+PLUS II BASELINE software the license will stop working
after 6 months but you can simply request another free 6-month license
extension on the Altera web site at
http://www.altera.com/support/licensing/lic-index.html (2nd to last
link under Legacy Software Licenses).

I am sorry to hear you had an unpleasant experience trying to convert
your MAX+PLUS II design into a Quartus II design. Altera has put a lot
of effort into making this process as easy as possible and we have
received a lot of positive feedback. We even went as far as including a
MAX+PLUS II user interface option in the software and put a lot of
effort into the "Convert MAX+PLUS II project..." feature to make the
process as simple as possible. The Quartus II software on average
offers 15% higher fmax performance and while consuming 5% fewer device
resources when compared to MAX+PLUS II software. For more details refer
to the Quartus II Handbook Chapter : Quartus II Design Flow for
MAX+PLUS II Users at
http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/qts/qts_qii51002.pdf.

In the Quartus II software you might want to try changing the Analysis
& Synthesis Optimization Technique setting from the default of "Speed"
to "Area" to try to solve your fitting problem. I also encourage you to
submit a service request at mysupport.altera.com so we can look into
your problem specifically.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Rob Kruger
Altera Software Marketing

<rkruger@altera.com> wrote in message 
news:1115674113.461392.325650@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Altera does not have any policy to stop users from using our legacy
> MAX+PLUS II software. We do encourgae users to take advantage of the
> latest Quartus II software performance and features but there is
> nothing to stop you from continuing to use MAX+PLUS II software.
>
> If you purchased an Altera subscription package your license should be
> perpetual i.e. it will work even after expiration. If you downloaded
> the free MAX+PLUS II BASELINE software the license will stop working
> after 6 months but you can simply request another free 6-month license
> extension on the Altera web site at
> http://www.altera.com/support/licensing/lic-index.html (2nd to last
> link under Legacy Software Licenses).
>
> I am sorry to hear you had an unpleasant experience trying to convert
> your MAX+PLUS II design into a Quartus II design. Altera has put a lot
> of effort into making this process as easy as possible and we have
> received a lot of positive feedback. We even went as far as including a
> MAX+PLUS II user interface option in the software and put a lot of
> effort into the "Convert MAX+PLUS II project..." feature to make the
> process as simple as possible. The Quartus II software on average
> offers 15% higher fmax performance and while consuming 5% fewer device
> resources when compared to MAX+PLUS II software. For more details refer
> to the Quartus II Handbook Chapter : Quartus II Design Flow for
> MAX+PLUS II Users at
> http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/qts/qts_qii51002.pdf.
>
> In the Quartus II software you might want to try changing the Analysis
> & Synthesis Optimization Technique setting from the default of "Speed"
> to "Area" to try to solve your fitting problem. I also encourage you to
> submit a service request at mysupport.altera.com so we can look into
> your problem specifically.
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rob Kruger
> Altera Software Marketing
>

Many thanks for your reply and for the others here.

I apologise for not looking harder.  It wasn't immediately obvious that I 
could still get licenses for obsolete software and indeed to be able to 
download obsolete software.

It is a bind that it is time limited though but good that I can get another 
licence file if I change machine.

Many thanks again.

"David" <david.nospam@westcontrol.removethis.com> wrote in message 
news:pan.2005.05.09.21.18.14.67000@westcontrol.removethis.com...
> On Mon, 09 May 2005 15:03:28 +0100, Fred wrote:
>
>> I have a Maxplus design which is a year or more old which was compiled 
>> with
>> Maxplus.  So far so good.  I am required to make a small alteration.
>>
>> The licence has expired and Maxplus seems obsolete so my only option is 
>> to
>> download Quartus.
>>
>
> A quick look at the Altera website gives links for downloading Maxplus and
> getting a license for it.  They make it clear that they recommend moving
> to Q2, and that Maxplus is for legacy designs only, but they also make it
> simple to download and license.  Did you actually try getting a new
> license, or did you just assume that "obsolete" means "unobtainable" ?
>


Guilty!

> http://www.altera.com/support/licensing/free_software/lic-max2baseline.jsp
>
>
>> Oh dear - I have never come across such a long winded process to convert
>> things to Quartus.
>>
>> After all the changes - Lo and behold it won't fit!
>>
>> Is this called progress?
>
> Given that Altera estimates a slight improvement on fitting on average
> when switching from Maxplus to Q2, I'd guess their support people would be
> interested in seeing the design and finding out what went wrong.

If requested I'd be happy to send them the design.

>
>>
>> What on earth is wrong with allowing the use of "outdated" software for
>> "outdated" designs?
> 

"Steve" <nospam@bit.bucket> wrote in message 
news:d5okqe$jmt$1@grandcanyon.binc.net...
> Fred wrote:
>
>> I have a Maxplus design which is a year or more old which was compiled 
>> with
>> Maxplus.  So far so good.  I am required to make a small alteration.
>>
>> The licence has expired and Maxplus seems obsolete so my only option is 
>> to
>> download Quartus.
>>
>> Oh dear - I have never come across such a long winded process to convert
>> things to Quartus.
>>
>> After all the changes - Lo and behold it won't fit!
>>
>> Is this called progress?
>>
>> What on earth is wrong with allowing the use of "outdated" software for
>> "outdated" designs?
>
> Fred,
> And if you even have problems getting a new license for the MaxPlus, as 
> others
> suggest....
>
> An easy work around is to simply set back the date on your computer. Has
> it's problems, but works fine here for getting MaxPlus to run. (You won't 
> want
> to have "email" simultaneously running on the same machine, for example.)
> You may want to get a copy of "touch" off the 'net to mess with source
> file time & dates to solve any file time dependency issues. Take a look at
> the license.dat file -- found it my Max II install directory, YMMV --
> to see what the expiration date is to see how far back you need to push 
> your
> clock.
>

My experience was that Maxplus was very touchy about dates and was smart 
enough to recognise "turning the clock back".  Mine was an experience with 
Win ME where 2 files were dated some time in the future on a genuine OEM 
installation disk which came with the PC.

"Ben Twijnstra" <btwijnstra@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:GXPfe.58352$0v1.26164@amsnews02.chello.com...
> Hi Fred,
>
>> The licence has expired and Maxplus seems obsolete so my only option is 
>> to
>> download Quartus.
>
> That's nonsense. If you have a valid subscription, Altera will still give
> you Maxplus features in the license. If the features were not in your
> latest license, you can simply request them.
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Ben
>

I was using Baseline for which the license expires after 6 months.