History of PADS

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

I have been using PADS for about 10 years at various companies.  My current boss is using an ancient version (I think it's called Perform) that runs in DOS. He has had this program since the '80s and is very proficient. He says he doesn't want to pay $thousands$ to upgrade for an incremental increase in productivity. 
Anyhow, he said back in the '80s he was dealing with the PADS folks on the East Coast.

This conflicts with what I was told at my last job. My boss there said he knew the original PADS programmers who he said were located in Newport Beach, CA. Maybe they moved...?

So I went to the Internet to resolve this issue and the first place I looked was Wikipedia. If you type in "PADS" (all uppercase) it just gives you a link to the Mentor Graphics Wikipedia page.

My questions: is there a history of PADS somewhere on the Internet? If not, could somebody create a Wikipedia page to get the history started? I figure this is the best place for this.

I'm just curious about the history of PADS and would like to know how it developed. I think others would also be interested in this.

Author	Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic
Cliff Harris Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List New User Joined: 17 Dec 2012 Location: Anaheim, CA Status: Offline Points: 2	Post Options Post Reply Quote Cliff Harris Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: History of PADS Posted: 17 Dec 2012 at 2:23pm
	I have been using PADS for about 10 years at various companies. My current boss is using an ancient version (I think it's called Perform) that runs in DOS. He has had this program since the '80s and is very proficient. He says he doesn't want to pay $thousands$ to upgrade for an incremental increase in productivity. Anyhow, he said back in the '80s he was dealing with the PADS folks on the East Coast. This conflicts with what I was told at my last job. My boss there said he knew the original PADS programmers who he said were located in Newport Beach, CA. Maybe they moved...? So I went to the Internet to resolve this issue and the first place I looked was Wikipedia. If you type in "PADS" (all uppercase) it just gives you a link to the Mentor Graphics Wikipedia page. My questions: is there a history of PADS somewhere on the Internet? If not, could somebody create a Wikipedia page to get the history started? I figure this is the best place for this. I'm just curious about the history of PADS and would like to know how it developed. I think others would also be interested in this.



Tom H Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: 05 Jan 2012 Location: San Diego, CA Status: Offline Points: 5719	Post Options Post Reply Quote Tom H Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 17 Dec 2012 at 6:10pm
	Here is a small snipit to start putting the pieces together. I know that PADS was created by Gene Marsh and his son who graduated college and they lived outside New York city. PADS was first released in 1985 in DOS OS and sold for $495 per seat. PADS headquarters were moved to to Marlborough, MA right next to a major freeway so that the building sign was visible from the freeway. That's what Gene wanted. Gene sold PADS to a Japanese PCB manufacturer "Kyoden" but that aquisition was hushed (secret) and the headquarters were relocated a couple blocks away. They expanded and eventually had a staff of 120 employees with sales distributors all over USA. In Newport Beach Southern California, CADWare was the main reseller and was owned by David Rager. Dennis O'Conner worked for David as a salesman, but Dennis originally came from Calay Systems where I worked and Wolfgang (programmer), Dick Finn (president), Jeff Kuester (applications) and others. I worked at Calay Systems in 1984 - 1985 but left to open a service bureau in San Diego called CADPRO where we developed the CADPRO library for PADS. Calay Systems started to fall apart in 1989 and Wolfgang and Dick Finn left Calay Systems and Wolfgang started Router Solutions. Dennis O'Connor quit Calay Systems went to work for Router Solutions as a salesman but in the early 90's went to work for CADWare selling PADS. CADWare's territory was all of Southern California and soon, Dennis left CADWare and got a reseller agreement to sell PADS in San Diego, CA. At the same time, David Linebaugh and Dave Orhill started Hytek in San Jose, CA selling PADS in Silicon Valley. They were very successful, selling hundreds of installations. My service bureau "CADPRO" switched from using Calay Systems to PADS in 1991 and I purchased a 7,000 Sq Ft. 2-story building to help the PADS resellers sell PADS. We did every design in PADS with 16 employees. Most of our customers purchased PADS and I wrote a PADS training manual and provided PADS training. Between 1991 - 2001 several hundred PADS seats were sold in Southern California. In 1997, PADS acquistioned Hyperlynx. In 1998 PADS aquired ACT. In 2000, Kyoden sold PADS to Innoveda which was joint venture capital with ViewLogic. In 2001 Mentor Graphics aquistioned Innoveda. In 2006 Mentor acquistioned Router Solutions. Jeff Kuester (who worked for Calay Systems and Router Solutions) started to work for Mentor Graphics as a PADS applications engineer based in Southern California. In 2008 PCB Libraries, Inc. changed the company name to PCB Matrix and Valor aquired PCB Matrix and in 2009 Mentor aquired Valor. In 2012 the PCB Libraries, Inc. reopened with the same team and here we are today. PADS is still located in Marlbourgh, MA but in a newer building. The 120 PADS staff has been reduced to less than 10 in Marlbourgh, MA (and most of them are marketing staff) and software development has been relocated in Katowice, Poland. Here is the CAD Vendor Merger chart - PCB_CAD_Vendor_Merger_History_2009.zip