And to celebrate you will soon start to see activities and celebrations. launching today is a fun site about the Autodesk AutoCAD 25 years with some information like trivia, timeline, and profiles and comments from some longtime Autodesk customers.
I love the “Legends of AutoCAD” and recognize the names and faces. I swear Rusty Gesner has not aged in the many years I have known him. It is also very nice to see Lucio on the front page. Also shown Jack Foster, Paul Laycock “G’Day Mate”, and Carole Hibbard. Each has a podcast file you can play.
I know some of the trivia is fairly simple as I got 15 out of 15 my first try in less than 1 minute. 🙂
I am trying to get a 386 with DOS 5.0 perhaps one of those sweet 45 pound laptops from the 1980’s to run AutoCAD release 1 or 2 on at Autodesk University this year in celebration of the anniversary.
I started using AutoCAD in R11, when did you start?
Cheers,
Shaan
You started with R11? A mere novice.
I started on version 2.17g, September 1986.
I was working as a doorknob designer at the time. Our first AutoCAD station was the envy of the Vancouver AutoCAD Users Society (VAUS). Incidentally, VAUS was the first AutoCAD user group in the world, and our newsletter eventually evolved into CADalyst magazine. VAUS is still active.
Anyway, our first AutoCAD station was one of the newest “powerhouse” IBM AT’s (6mHz 286 processor). It had a 20mB hard drive and a 16-colour Tecmar Graphics Master card. It had 2mB of RAM (we paid $1,000 extra for the second meg) and the optional 287 math chip.
By comparison, a “typical” AutoCAD station was a 4.77mHz PC with an 8086 chip, 640k of RAM and two 5-1/4″ 360k floppy drives. AutoCAD would boot and run from a single disk in a single drive, but you had to swap a second disk in and out depending on the command you wanted next. Standard issue was usually a Hercules monochrome graphics card. If your boss was really generous you might have the 8087 math chip.
Ah, for the “good old days”. On the other hand, we could go from a power-on cold boot to the AutoCAD Command: prompt in under 30 seconds. My current 3gHz dual-core with 2gB of RAM running Windows XP takes over 3-1/2 minutes…
Bill,
It is indeed an honor to have another Legend of AutoCAD posting on the blog. Yes I am a novice but have spent quite a bit of time running the older releases on my machines to make up for some of the good old history and know the pain of no UNDO.
I have your April 1984 CADalyst vol.1 no.2 pamphlet as it was not a magazine but a small booklet. You can see some of my unofficial AutoCAD history at http://myfeedback.autodesk.com/history/area51.htm and I plan on a major update soon.
Thank you for your excellent historical details contribution. Do you still have any old memorabilia or releases?
Cheers,
Shaan
PING:
TITLE: 25 years of AutoCAD?
BLOG NAME: RobiNZ CAD Blog
AutoCAD is turning 25! Crikey, I must getting old as remember most of it!
We first used AutoCAD R2.something at Tech. I say