In this Article...
Remembering the old days is always fun. I asked about your experience first time using AutoCAD on Twitter and Google+ and got nice replies. So I thought I would ask here too.
It turns out that we have many AutoCAD veterans in the community. Far before I even know AutoCAD!
My Experience
I started using AutoCAD since R14. AutoCAD is relatively new in my country when I started learning it. It was 1997. Most of us were still using drafting board, and not everyone knows how to use computer. The training was expensive, and sadly the instructor didn’t teach me well. Plotting is a nightmare for us. Setting the right scale was confusing. And oh… he didn’t teach me to use command line! Can you imagine that?
I’m fortunate to work in an architecture firm in 2002. That was my first professional experience using AutoCAD. The draftsman there were very good and they taught me very well.
AutoCAD skill was rare in late 90’s here. I’m proud that I’m an early adopter. I didn’t know AutoCAD well, but my friends still think I’m an AutoCAD guru :)
What about your experience using AutoCAD?
I know that many of you have interesting stories.
Shaan Hurley has very interesting story about his AutoCAD history on his blog.
On twitter we have Kimberly shared AutoCAD was futuristic back then.
Melanie shared a picture from newspaper, showing she was in high school drafting competition.
How about you? Do you have interesting stories to share? Are you one of the proud early adopter? Are you the first among your friends? Were you struggling with AutoCAD when you switched from other CAD program?
Share your story in the comment form here.
After using a drawing board (parallel edge), I started with AutoCAD 12, DOS based with menus. It was relatively time consuming but there were some useful commands which have disappeared over the years. File management using X-Tree Gold DOS software. Only one programme could be run at a time; it took about 3 mins to close one programme & open another on the 486, 33MHz PC with 16MB RAM. It had a 120MB HD which took about 2 years to fill up (yes I do mean MHz/MB, not GHz/GB) .This was a high spec PC in its day! Pen plotter which was a total entertainment to watch as the paper moved back to front and the pens moved side to side, drawing lines in some random order. Used to run the demo print just to show it to visitors.
Now on AutoCAD 2016. lots of things better, some things not quite so good. AutoCAD RL 14 was very good.
I know about that 486 computers. My father first computer was 286 XT I think, with 5 1/4″ disk. No hard drive for that old stuff.
But I only use WordStar and Lotus 123 that time.
I began using Autocad with version 1.9. It has been an interesting road to the current version of the software. I can still remember the serialized tablets we used for many years and the challenges they provided. I am currently on ACADE 2014 (company supplied). I am also currently testing ACADE 2017 alpha as well as the beta for Inventor.
My first copy of AutoCad came on 5 1/4″ floppies, which I had purchased because I needed floppies. This was a common way to distribute software to get new customers.
I can’t imagine running AutoCAD from 5 1/4″ floppies! It was 720 kB, wasn’t it?
Most drawings now are larger than that!
Back in ’85 – ’87 when I took my Engineering Drafting / CAD course we first started off learning how to sharpen a pencil! Then over the next 2 years we had a combination of ‘on board’ and CAD. The first package we worked with was MinnDraft (from University of Mnnesota) which loaded with 8″ floppies (yes, 8 inches). Very bad, kept crashing. Do a zoom extents and you could go out get coffee and a cigarette and maybe it would be finished when you were. Then we moved over to Personal Designer (3D wireframe). It was the LAST day of the LAST year that we got our hands on AutoCAD R2.* (?). Got to load it on the computers, play with it for the day and then unload at the end of the day. :(
Following school I then did drafting design by hand for the next 5 years. Eventually we had to move over to ACAD as the clients were moving too from the board to the screen. So my (real) learning of ACAD was R11 DOS. I learned the keyboard very well although we had tablets and pucks also. I am now working with Plant 3D 2015 but !still! do most of my work via the keyboard….can’t say I like the ribbon or icons. Never can find what I want and can’t remember what each icon does either.
I !still! have a Love Hate relationship with the program but luckily still like what I do. So because I can’t afford to retire I still keep at it and try to keep moderately up with the new technology.
Richard H. Weiner
Richmond, BC, Canada
I don’t know there’s a special techniques for sharpening a pencil :D Maybe I should learn that too…
And 8″ floppies? I’ve never heard it until now!
Sharpening pencils? By hand? Surely there’s an App for that!
lol and to think I was looking for a cheap small plastic manual pencil sharpener… who knew…
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/auto-pencil-sharpener/id987475810?mt=8
I started learning AutoCAD in college back in 1987 using version 2.7. I soaked it all up until I won the Skills Canada AutoCAD Championship in 1990. I have been using 3D since 1987 – a very long time – back in those days it was 2 1/2D, but I found my workarounds to master the third dimension. Even today, with the tools available, many in the design industry still cannot think in 3D properly. I made a comment back around 199o or 1991 that only 2 to 5% of all designers can properly think in 3D – based on what the industry is putting out as far as quality and proper coordination (or lack thereof) is concerned today, this still seems to be a true statement.
True,
With those new sophisticated software, I don’t understand why it’s so hard to work with 3D. They are much easier than 10-20 years ago, but still not many people use them.
Started on r12 Windows version with Softdesk Cogo and Survey plug-ins. Boss had r12 Unix version he used to put parcels I drew into ESRI GIS. AutoCAD Map came out while I was doing this.
Wow… I thought R13 was the first Windows version. I don’t realize AutoCAD Map has been there that long.
Thanks for sharing Tom.
R13 was terrible. It was my first windows based AutoCAD, using command icons, but is was VERY unstable & crashed, at least two or three of times a day. Mmmm… somethings never change. Only joking, crashes are down to two or three a week now.
Hi to all out there.
I had my first experience in the mid 80’s. I think it was in the summer in 1986.
I was a member of a team of engineers who build two hospitals in Heraklion, Greece and in the north of Greece. Our Office was in Athen, Greece.
On of our partners in Athen draw there drawings with AutoCAD. I think it was the AutoCAD Version 2.5 or so.
I’ve gone crazy because of two simple think. I didn’t understand that we make our AutoCAD drawings in orignal size (1:1) and I didn’t know anythink about units. Therefore drawing lines in millimeter or meter was so terrible for me.
I didn’t know anythink about layers and styles and so on.
When I finished my Job in Athen I learned AutoCAD in a professionally training here in Germany. Now I a Trainer and a developer.
Best Regards Jürgen
Thank you for sharing Jürgen,
30 years later, many people still have problem like you have before :)
I started AutoCAD as a college course about 1983 or 84. It was version 1.1 on a machine that did not have a hard drive. Everything was done on floppies. I had to travel to another college campus to take the course because my Architecture school did not offer it.
Hi Edwin,
Great idea for a topic of discussion :)
I started with AutoCAD at night school back in around 2003. I’d left college in 1997 and spent the time in between as a scenery designer and builder doing all my drawings by hand!
I still remember the weird sensation on sitting down at a computer to do a drawing, oh and – the frustration of a selection window appearing every time I clicked (Until I got the Escape key Jitters ;)
In 2007 I started working with Inventor… That is a whole other story!
Paul
Thank you Paul, it seems that you are the youngest in this thread :D
I’ve never had a chance drafting by hand professionally. It should be fun when I switched to AutoCAD ;)
Hi Edwin,
I LOVED drawing by hand ;) Line weights, lettering, shading even 3D sketches. It was so intuitive and natural.
The other big plus is that you could always see the whole drawing all the time. This taught me a lot about laying out drawings (Composition) and working out the whole design at once.
One difference I’ve noticed with CAD is that the ‘infinite zoom’ allows people to become so focused on details that they lose track of the bigger picture.
Still – no Boss I’ve ever had has offered to buy me a drawing board to replace my PC :) CAD does allow us to produce work faster.
You can see an example of my hand drawing here:
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autodeskhelp/how-to-become-an-autocad-expert-by-paul-munford/ba-p/5546014