Figured I’d post this here.
Not sure if anyone would want to do a proper importer for kicad. This is ultra hacky, but someone might find it useful for extracting something approximately like a footprint from an existing old board or a proof of concept for a proper converter
Consider this basically a beta, because it has practically zero creature comforts and basically hacked its way into a format kicad could open.
Developed/tested on “ASUS_Motherboard_P2B_1.12” which the enterprising will be able to find.
No guarantees it will work on others, but it should.
ASUS because it gets the component values from their BOM file.
If other boardviews have that data, or you don’t care go ahead and modify it.
I will probably play with a few others, but I don’t expect to spend much more time on it.
Edit the script at the top to change a couple of options (eg bom file)
It did require one notable edit of the original files. For some reason some files had PENT and others had PENTIUM. It had to change.
I may have missed some things but it looks complete at a glance
It could be useful for getting footprints from old boards, or if you really love a board, recreating it.
How to use.
Run from powershell, in the directory with the ASCs, and BOM
Wait.
In kicad, start new project > pcb editor > append board (or try with the raw file attached)
Symbols will have to be assigned/created to get it into a schematic.
Unfortunately “update schematic from PCB” just laughed at me.
Attached:
P2b recreated from the ASC file
Script
Just tested on TuV4x_101.
It complained, and some manual fixing of something wrong in the file where kicad complained, but… Attached.
Already found a typo. I expect more. line 608 $device should be $pdevice to add component values.
I have never heard of a PCB design product from Fabmaster. Their business is PCB assembly and test, importing 3rd party PCB files.
Are these Mentor or othe files post-processed by Fabmaster?
My understanding is that it was “bed of nails” testing machine /suite for automated board testing.
It is the only format these ~20yo old boards were leaked in.
I’ve made fair progress reverse engineering it (and kicad) as you can see. Some kinks remain.
The basic idea is for someone (maybe me) to recreate a retro motherboard.
There are several recreations of older era boards, or equivalents. The p2/3 era is likely next.
My basic aim is to get it to the point that the only thing to do is swap/mod footprints, rearrange as desired, and design traces. It’s a bit of a puzzle, really.
Here’s the header of one of those files
LV101 FABMASTER (R) licence #3421 , TOPTEST TECHNOLOGIES CO
Part Pins List 0/3126 Selected Parts 13-Aug-2001 23:20
INCH units