destroying my last pic? driving a miniature motor

[RussMartin]

I guess I forgot to answer that part.
Or maybe I was unconsciously avoiding it, since the program I use is a constant source of mental anguish.

I use IVEX WinDraft/WinBoard.

Ivex went out of business a couple years ago, and now there's no one to fix all the bug's.
Which is probably why they went out of business in the first place. (there's a lot of bug's).

And when the company closed, so did it's online Auto-Router server.
So now everything has to be routed manually. And of course that's hard to do because of the Bug's.

The last board I did, ... 18F6720, 10 other chips, 101 resistors,35 capacitors, etc. took almost 2 months to route manually.

I've got to find another program. And PCB123 just doesn't do it for me.
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I use IVEX WinDraft and WinBoard--and PentaLogix ViewMasterEZ for post-editing the Gerbers. Never much anguish, mental or otherwise. My last upgrade was to 3.12 on WinDraft and 2.26 on WinBoard.

I rarely have problems with WinDraft/WinBoard. Which bugs are "bugging" you? The only chronic, serious difficulty I've encountered is laying in copper zones (such as ground or power planes) with WinBoard, but I started doing that with ViewMasterEZ.

On routing, I don't know what to say--I learned PCB layout before CAD, when it was done on a drafting table!--so I find "manual" routing with WinBoard is a breeze (I never used their auto-routing service). As you've probably already discovered, the first secret of easy routing is starting with the right component layout--and that's more nearly art than science!

But if I can help you (or anyone) out with WinDraft and/or WinBoard problems, let me know. Fundamentally, they are good, powerful products and, since the company is gone, now very accessible.

IVEX was around for over a decade (that's a long time for a small company in a technology field) and did not fail because of a "buggy" product. While in business, they constantly improved and updated their offerings and were even distributed by NTE. They were, I believe, "caught in the middle" between the low end, inexpensive (or free) manufacturer-specific products (PCB123 is an example) and the high end (ORCAD). The founder decided to shut down and move on. I don't agree with how he did it, but I understand the why. And there are still a lot of IVEX users out here.