Quote Originally Posted by Kitwn View Post
Eeeeee lad, I remember those days! The Maplin catalogue and sending off hand filled in order forms by post, Practical Wireless, The Radio Constructor and Veroboard. In those days I drew brain-designed PCB layouts on 0.1 inch graph paper and then transferred the holes to copper board with a pin and drew in the traces using what Maplin sold as a special PCB resist pen but was actually a bog standard permanent marker, just three times the price. I even had my own personalised call sign, G0KIT. Nostalgia's not what it used to be!
Elektor was my favourite.

Quote Originally Posted by Kitwn View Post
More seriously, I've recently changed from using Eagle, where I never quite mastered the libraries and creating new footprints for the PCB, to DipTrace which is a bit easier to use and does have a free-for-non-commercial-use version if you look carefully enough at the website. I've only made one board with it so far but I like it so far.
You should try EasyEDA. It is very simple to create new parts, edit the millions of available ones or create/change footprints. The only thing I am missing is auto placing the parts when creating PCB.