Favorite AutoCAD Version

[f700es]

Guys drawing the Titanic

 

[tzframpton]

Good find Sean.

 

-TZ

[f700es]

Just look at how long their tables are. OMG. "Yes, I need a 96" parallel bar please."

[Dana W]

And that's at 1/16" = 1'-0".

[acad_2k]

I started with R12 DOS and used every version thru 2007, that's when I quit my day job. I purchased 2000i when it first came out and have been using it since. I have several machines loaded with Windows 2000 for back-ups.

 

AutoCad 2000 does everything I need it to. No complaints,. I remember that R12 came loaded with a wire-frame of the space shuttle. I thought to myself at the time, if this program was used to design the space shuttle, it should be more than I would ever need to design a house.

 

My original point was that when I first started using AutoCad, (R12) it seemed to be a much larger program than what was needed to design houses. Autocad was introduced in 1982 but certainly wasn't the first CAD program. Regardless, by the time R12 was introduced, I doubt there was much hand drafting going on at NASA.

[nukecad]

I still have two slide rules. Not that I use them any more or even remember how. I'd need a refresher course! LOL

I was just learning how to use a slide rule properly when electronic calculators became affordable (I was about 13 yo).

Wouldn't have a clue now what to do with a slide rule now except use it as a straight edge.

I think I've still got a set of log tables somewhere.

 

Most of my old draughting tools got left behind in a house move.

 

A guy from the pub was asking me recently about using an old set of 'dip in the ink' draughting tools he'd got from an antique shop, he couldn't get them to draw properly.

Turns out he was trying to draw on photocopy paper with them.

At least he was willing to try them out.

[ReMark]

I still have a good deal of my old drafting tools with the exception of my technical drafting pens which is strange because I still have all of my ruling pens (fixed and hinged blade).

[f700es]

My original point was that when I first started using AutoCad, (R12) it seemed to be a much larger program than what was needed to design houses. Autocad was introduced in 1982 but certainly wasn't the first CAD program. Regardless, by the time R12 was introduced, I doubt there was much hand drafting going on at NASA.

 

Well AutoCAD wasn't just made to draw houses, it could draw/draft almost anything. As for NASA, I am pretty sure they used their own in house CAD system. In fact NASA still develops and releases software/code that they have developed in house.

 

https://code.nasa.gov/

 

https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/models

 

https://software.nasa.gov/

[f700es]

I still have a good deal of my old drafting tools with the exception of my technical drafting pens which is strange because I still have all of my ruling pens (fixed and hinged blade).

 

I have most of mine too except my compass set. My son and his grandfather are building him a new speaker box for his truck. We were looking for the compass set to draw the 10.125" circle for the sub. No idea where it went.

[ReMark]

I have a beam compass you can borrow. It's 13" long.

[f700es]

Haha, we used a string and 2 pencils

[tzframpton]

Autocad was introduced in 1982 but certainly wasn't the first CAD program.

This is correct, but I think AutoCAD was the first CAD program that didn't require a mainframe (can someone confirm this?).

 

My grandfather remembers working in CATIA back int he 70's when he was an aerospace engineer:

http://www.worldcadaccess.com/blog/2013/03/the-history-of-catia-computer-aided-tri-dimensional-interactive-application-by-its-founder-francis-b.html

 

For those who are interested, my grandfather worked at LTV in the 70's and 80's in Grand Prairie, TX:

http://www.gptx.org/about-us/history/history-of-aviation-in-grand-prairie

 

He remembers clearly the CATIA platform, and remembers in the mid-late 80's, picking up AutoCAD when he was working as a consultant in his retirement (he retired in 1980, two years before I was born). He still has his AutoCAD manual on his bookshelf, I believe for version 9? But yeah, he's got great stories of CAD's original emergence. I love hearing about it. Even better stories about how to create an auxiliary view with nothing more than paper, pencil and some straight edges.

 

-TZ

[ReMark]

ACAD was the first significant program for the IBM-PC. Before that there was Sketchpad. Users manipulated objects on a CRT screen via a light pen.

[Dana W]

In 1982, I was using a proprietary package called CDEdit running on a VAX mini mainframe. It could draw lines, fillets, circles, and polygons. It also had a library of electronics symbols. We did wiring diagrams for XXX Inc. which were schematics for computer, and communications devices, and cabling diagrams for equipment racks.

 

The VAX's boot program was on a metal punched tape about 7 feet long, no reel, just feed it in and try not to lose fingers. Maybe there had been a reel at one time. The good thing was that we had four hard disk drives the size of washing machines, each with a whopping 512 megabytes, I think.

 

Something tells me I have mentioned this before in this or a similar thread, or maybe my Deja just got Vu'ed.

[Dana W]

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I once fooled around with coding swirly moving line screen saver type drawings on a Commodore 64 in BASIC. The code would locate two points, and connect them with a line, then change the points with math, rinse, repeat. Human sight being what it is, the lines would appear to be a dancing fan-like shape as the program looped through the code, incrementing the coordinates of the line vertices until the screen was almost entirely blacked (blued?) out. It got interesting after I figured out how to erase each line as soon as it was drawn. Then, there would be a 3 to six line ghosting effect swooping around the screen. They'd run until you hit the break stop quit end (?) key. The amazing part, thinking back was that I was not in the least perturbed by the code taking almost a full 0.20 second to place one line across the screen.

 

Didn't take much to amuse me in those days, and it was entertaining to my 10 year old son at the time.

[acad_2k]

ACAD was the first significant program for the IBM-PC. Before that there was Sketchpad. Users manipulated objects on a CRT screen via a light pen.

 

I never used CAD in architecture school. As an intern just learning CAD, I was assigned the task of finishing a site plan with contours. Having no clue how to do it, I traced the outline directly from the CRT onto yellow tracing paper. I was about to finish the drawing by hand when one of the other architects saw what I was doing and politely showed me what a poly-line was.

[Jman]

My all time favorite version was R14 I can remember when they took away my dos and my digitizer tablet. lol We are using release 2018 and I like it. I like the newer versions because i can bring in all

my settings from the previous versions and get to work. The only real beef i have is how long it takes to start up acad. We usually never close it down but when our system does an update it reboots the

computers. I can have a cup of coffee and a smoke before it comes up lol. I have been fortunate to have used all the versions starting with release 9. Release 13 was junk so we never used it.

I'm an old fart so i still use the classic menu.

[Spacepig62]

Version 2.5, because I could put away all my Rotring pens, French curves, etc, etc amd start draughting the way I'd wanted to since 1979

[CyberAngel]

AutoCAD, hah! In my day you drew up your plans on a big adjustable table with big adjustable pencils. If you wanted to communicate with your client, you cranked out an actual letter on actual paper with a manual typewriter. Then you put it in an envelope, seeded your fields, punched out a nazi, walked to the post office, mailed your letter, walked home, punched out a commie, and harvested your fields. None of your new-fangled telephones or electricity or flivvers, neither! You did math in your head or it didn't get done. Machines are for sissies!

[BIGAL]

Trying to think how I type the sound of a NEC 8" twin floppy drive and it was Colour! Of course running Autocad.