AutoCAD - In The Beginning...

There is a story that I occasionally bore people with, and following a recent request from Shaan Hurley on his "Between The Lines" blog - "Autodesk 25th Anniversary: Do You Have Photos, Trivia, Stories, Memorabilia?" I thought I would put it to paper (or blog in this case), and send it to Shaan. I do not intentionally try to bore people, and nobody has yet fallen asleep when I recall this story, but maybe that is just out of politeness...

Anyway, here goes...
I started using AutoCAD back in 1982, when it all began (In fact it was early 1983 when the company I worked for at the time finally took delivery of our first CAD system). I didn't start with the very first release of AutoCAD but it was very likely the second (version 1.2 I believe). Now I always follow up this little anecdote with... I do not profess to know everything about Autodesk software and I certainly never will... in fact I find today I am learning new things on a daily basis.

At the time, my then Technical Services Manager talked to me regarding technology advances and the possibility of investment in new Drawing Office equipment. Now at this point please bear in mind, that I was young, and had fallen into the position of Drawing Office Section Leader, as it was called back then, by accident. Well not entirely by accident, but in a very short time frame I soon became the longest serving member of staff in the Drawing Office, as people moved on, and so became the DO Section Leader by default. Now, as I said, at the time I was young and so new technological advances in design and drawing methods was not at the top of my priority list, in fact it fell a long way behind girls and loud rock music!

Anyway, back to the main topic... my Technical Services Manager and I set about discussing and evaluating two possible technologies for investment...

Option 1 - The Lettering Machine - "The Scriber"

The Lettering Machine, connected to the drafting machine of a standard drawing board and was comprised of a control unit with a standard QWERTY keyboard and a single pen holder. You would lock the drafting machine in place where you required the text on your drawing and typed the required text into the control unit. The text was displayed on a single line LCD display on the control unit for checking before accepting the text, on acceptance the text was drawn... wow! how cool was that?

The Lettering Machine even came in its own stylish presentation case!...

Option 2 - AutoCAD

A nice man from a company called Autodesk came along to our offices and demonstrated a new software which was known as AutoCAD, apparently the "CAD" was an abbreviation for "Computer Aided Design" (or "Computer Aided Drawing"), whatever that was supposed to mean... for that matter, what was a computer?

Anyway, he stayed for most of the day, demonstrated this new AutoCAD thing and we were reasonably impressed, The PC looked similar to that shown below, although we didn't have the luxury of color!

Which option would you choose?

I seem to recall it took us a while to make our final decision, I was fascinated by this new computer based drawing program, so much so, that for a while girls and loud rock music were relegated down my priority list (not for too long though!).

At the time we invested in the computer hardware the AutoCAD software and a Calcomp pen plotter. I also recall after much testing that we would produce our designs in AutoCAD, without annotation or dimensions. We would then plot the drawing. Put the drawing on the drawing board and annotate and dimension the drawing by hand.

Question...
Why on earth did you do that?

Well, before I answer, and with thanks to Shaan Hurley: I sent this posting to Shaan a little while ago, and Shaan pointed out something quite important that I had completely forgotten. AutoCAD did not even have dimensioning until version 1.3 and it was an extra $500.

Answer...
So that would explain why we dimensioned on the drawing board. In addition, I recall that we did get the dimensioning upgrade at version 1.3, but we still had a problem...
As the plot was generated and the paper went flying backwards and forwards between the plotter pinch wheels, the paper would shift, and by the time the plot was finished the dimensions and text were out of position, or worse still the paper would come off the pinch wheels and... you know the rest. So when we finally got dimensioning, we didn't use it for some time... who needs dimensions anyway!

Those problems were cured over time... and now look where we are!

Comments

[RobiNZ]

At the time I was a student with appaling printing. I remember dreaming about the Rotring Lettering Machine...

My first try with AutoCAD...

http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd/2007/08/25-years-of-aut.html

[Chairmats Guy]

Some very interesting AutoCAD info. Boy, it's sure changed from what is was 15 years ago!

[College Term Papers]

Very nice write up. Easy to understand and straight to the point.

[Gregg]

I used a Leroy lettering guide machine (all manual) in the late 1950s, early 1960s after I developed hand lettering in school.
I got a late start in AutoCAD (1988) with ACAD v 2.56 (you could call it R8) on a Compaq portable computer with a 10 inch green monochrome screen. Trying to do layers with colors on that was interesting.
About the same time I took a night class on beginning AutoCAD as they were switching from Apple II machines to IBM personal computers. I learned VersaCAD at the same time. At least there were color monitors (640x480) with 16 colors, doing ACAD R10. And I learned 3D too!
After a couple semesters, the teacher offered me the night teaching position, and I did that for 6 years, doing beginning, intermediate and advanced classes, most often in the same room at the same time.
Gregg