Hi.
I personally have never used either ORCAD or KiCad. A very good friend of mine has a Version of ORCAD (he owned from a previous career). It is a Legitimate copy, but it is very old. The Version is 3.2 Circa 1988. It is a 16 Bit program and I want to know if it is feasible to import his myriad files into KiCad, which I have installed on Linux and is version 4.0.4-1. It is installed on Fedora 24 (64 Bit). I have one of his files and it is a binary type but I have no idea what Format it is. It does not have any extension like dos used to use but it is a ā application/octet-stream; charset=binary ā file when examined by the āfile -iā function in Linux. If the transfer is extremely difficult I would not mention it to him but if it were doable, I think he might take up the challenge ( and dump his 16 bit Windows). Any knowledge and experience in this process would be much appreciated.
Practically speaking, unless you have projects in Eagle format, it is not possible to convert.
Thank you for your reply. And I guess that there is no reasonable way to get them into an Eagle Format, for files that old? Was an Eagle Format even in existence back in that time?
Eagle first version was in 1988, so it is plausible. Orcad is generally used by professional users, so it is more likely there is an Orcad to Eagle conversion. It appears that Autodesk plan to add Orcad import to Eagle. Iāve never used Orcad so I donāt know what formats it might export.
Generally speaking, data in old proprietary formats can be considered ālostā. I guess the incentive for hobby users is to avoid repeating a lot of work, but even an automated conversion process if one exists is never perfect and will always require quite a lot of manual rework. It is probably simpler and better just to start using the new tool and re-implement whatever is needed.
There is a utility called sarlacc, found at in the geda-gaf/utils/src/sarlacc_schem repository.
I have never tried it, and it may not work for your version of Orcad.
If you manage to convert it to a gschem format layout, there are ways and means of exporting a netlist that would work in pcbnew, but that is putting the cart before the horse at this stage!
Good luck!
Erich.
Thank you. I must say I agree with your comment that āeven an automated conversion process if one exists is never perfect and will always require quite a lot of manual reworkā. My experiences in other areas of conversion support exactly what you are saying. I am convinced that starting from here on a āgo forward basisā is the best approach. You help has been invaluable. 
I have gone to URL http://wiki.geda-project.org/geda:gaf and I am having a read of what it says. I will look into this and see what it will do. I want to thank you so much for your reply. While I am at this I have another question. Is there a Sample File (Project) out there that I could just import into my KiCad to ease my way around the familiarizing myself a bit on how it looks and works? I would not use it other than as a learning tool. Thanksā¦
Not really simple, butā¦
Thank you āhermitā. I am heading on over thereā¦
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