goodbye my autocad goodbye

[stragenmitsuko]

It must be close to 20years ago my brother in law gave me a box they threw away at his work . He works at an engineering firm and makes drawings .
The box had a full autocadR12 for dos , all the books , licences , extra's and addons . It also had a A3 flatbed pen plotter and an A3 genius drawing board .
As they upgraded their systems , it was destined to the trash .

I've been using it ever since .
Altough the pen plotter was fun to watch , it could be quite messy so I abandoned that one for a laserjet a couple of years later . Still have it , tucked away in a corner .

The drawing tablet has become an extension of my right hand when drawing parts . I use it blindly , like a typist who doesn't look at his keyboard .

Over the years , as computers upgraded it became harder and harder to keep this alive . Been using an exchangeable HD system for some time with w98 , then came a dual boot dos/XP , next was an addon card for an rs232 port , because the tablet has only a serial interface .
My previous computer , until last week , was a Pentium IV . Nowaday's industrial archeology but I kept it to keep the autocad going . .

So now I guess now the time has come to reluctantly say goodbey .
I recently aquired an I7 computer . I'm not able to get this one working as a dual boot dos/win7 . Altough I did get a dos working at a certain point , the autocad still wouldn run giving memory and stack errors etc .
No more IDE cd-rom on the I7 , and the sata drives are not supported in dos .
No more RS232 , and I have no addon cards that are dos/win7 compatible .

The only option I can see is to keep the PIV next to the new pc , and switch cables whenever I need to draw something . Wich is a bit of a hassle to say the least .

So folks , what drawing packages are outthere nowadays taht are a bit user friendly . I really don't want to learn again ho to use the software . I want to draw something and start machining . Especially the sketch tablet will be greatly missed .


Pat

 

[Nick Hulme]

You need to investigate machine virtualisation, you can have a Windows 98 machine running as a virtual machine on a brand new Dell Blade Server if you wish ;-)

 

[gbritnell]

Draft sight is almost an Autocad clone, and it's free
Gbritnell

 

[dnalot]

I had the same problem and I switched to Draft Sight about a year ago. Works fine and was easy to use. The copy paste function is a bit quirky at times.

Mark T

 

[miglincit]

I would suggest the onshape-project.

Thomas

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Pat,

I feel your pain having been through similar experiences. I've been a Linux user for years and have used most of the CAD programs out there that will run on Linux. I currently used "Qcad", again an almost, Autocad clone. The nearest I can offer is that there is a USB to Serial dongle That might help keep your tablet going, however finding drivers could be an issue. I lost my HP tablet because the serial port disappeared. The dongle didn't work with Linux... So now I just stick with the mouse.

 

[e.picler]

HI Pat!
I recommend you take a look on Fusion 360 from Autodesk. It is very very user friendly an is free if you declare you are a enthusiastic or student and are not going to use it for commercial purpose.
It is CAD/CAM. I just downloaded to take a look on it. There are a lot of videos on the Autodesk web site teaching you about how to use it.

Thanks,

Edi

 

[stragenmitsuko]

Thank you for all the suggestions .

I haven't given up compleately yet . I'm quite stubborn when it comes to keeping old things going .
I'm waiting for a scsi card to arrive , to keep my backup system .
Same problem . My old scsi is no longer supported in Win7x64 .
It is in X86 , but the new pc has 12Gbyte ram , so there 's no point
in running a 32 bit system anymore . Once that arrives, I'll have all the hardware bits , and give the software side another go .

I can solve the serial port problem . Sadly usb convertors won't work under dos . But there are add on cards that are still dos compatible , and they're quite affordable .The biggest challenge no doubt will be to get the dual boot system working , and then to get the autocad working . I'll certainly give it another try . A virtual machine , like dosbox maybe , just might work in combination with a usb to serial convertor . Also worth trying .

I also am gonna give draftsight a go . Looks promising for sure .
And my son had solidworks at school , he says its very easy to learn ,
but then again he's 30 years younger then I am .
But who knows , maybe I will enter the 21 century after all

Another question :
If you look at the picture , this is a drawing made by ausdier from a project designed by Gbritnell if I'm not mistaking .
I've build this on a blue monday , and I particularly liked the readability of this kind of drawings with the 3d model . Makes machining so much easier .

Does anyone know what cad was used to make this drawing ?

Pat

 

[miglincit]

Hi Pat,

And my son had solidworks at school , he says its very easy to learn ,
but then again he's 30 years younger then I am .
But who knows , maybe I will enter the 21 century after all

seems like we are about the same age - and I managed to learn SolidWorks five years ago - it helps when you how your work piece will look-a-like

But unfortunately SolidWorks is pretty expensive for non students

That's when I learned to know about Onshape - a bunch of former SolidWorks developer started a new cloud-based approach to CAD. So you don't have to install anything - it works completely in your browser and independent of your operating system (even on tablets).
Just give it a try.

Thomas

 

[Ghosty]

Pat,
I had the same problem with AutoCAD 14(will only run on XP) that I have had for almost 20 years when I built a new I7 comp running windows 8. So I built a stand alone comp just for AutoCAD 14 running XP, may be some thing to think about.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[rleete]

Wow. I learned on a system like that 35+ years ago. Haven't used a tablet in decades.

 

[Charles Lamont]

So I built a stand alone comp just for AutoCAD 14 running XP

As mentioned above, Autocad 14 drawings can be opened, worked on, and saved, with DraftSight, which is free.

 

[pkastagehand]

I also disdain running out to buy the latest and greatest. I keep old stuff going as long as I can get parts or make parts or figure out how to fix it. But at some point it seems like the law of diminishing returns hits and it is time. The money and work spent to keep the old ACAD going on new machines could maybe be better spent on 3D modeling software like OnShape or something else.

If sticking with 2D then the suggestion about DraftSight is good. Only AutoDesk thing I've ever used was Autocad LT which I didn't care much for but DraftSight may be the least change from ACAD.

I have tried FreeCad but haven't quite wrapped my head around some of its quirks yet, especially trying to get dimensioned drawings for the shop printed in a meaningful way. The interface for that is quite clumsy so far. But it is free and does 3D modeling.

Paul

 

[ninefinger]

Pat,

In response to your question of what software can make the drawings with the 3D models - my guess would be most modern 3D CAD packages. As far as what I know personally, I use Fusion 360 from Autodesk and it can do it. Its also free for hobby / under $100k business per year. Very powerful - especially if you want CAM and CAD together, but also easy to learn. Lots of useful youtube videos if you can't figure something out, or even just for getting started.

Mike

 

[grapegro]

Hello Mike,
I am keen to make a an old time engine of my own design, based on an old open crank engine with a side shaft similar to the Ruston , or Austral engines. Could this be possible with Fusion 360? Thanks for your help.
Norm

 

[e.picler]

Hi Norm and all!
Yes the fusion 360 is definitely capable of doing that. In fact the fusion 360 is very powerful CAD-CAM software, it can do 2D and 3D drawing/projects. Its CAM has a big list of post processors including MACH3-4.
You do not need to be a student to get it free, there are options for hobbyists/enthusiastics.
It is worth to take a look.


Thanks,

Edi

 

[gmac]

I looked at Fusion 360 but - it requires a 64 bit architecture and is Windows or Mac - no Linux variant that I could see. Unfortunately my old notebook is 32 bit and I've gone to Linux Mint 17.3 XFCE to escape the Windows Vista slow death. XFCE works fast on this old machine and my only issues are finding free substities for CAD / Cam / Solidmodelling.

Even though I went (happily) to Draftsight (32 bit) when I dual booted Vista and Linux I wiped out Draftsight to make space, only to find out it is only available in 64 bit now .

Watching this space for ideas!!!!

Cheers Garry

 

[stragenmitsuko]

slowly making progress .
My old scsi card adaptec aha-2940u2w is no longer supported in win7 .
No drivers available .
Some of the 2940 family can be used with a modified vista driver , but
the u2w is not comaptible .

The only pci32 bit card that has a win7 64bit driver seems to be the adaptec 16160 .
Found one in spain for 20€ s&h included . Long live ebay

Card arrived , , works like a charm , and the opto magnetics drive and the jazz drive are operational again .

The DDS4 tape drive should also work , it is recognised and visible in device manager , but then I learned that windows7 dropped tape drive support all together . No more ntbackup , no more removable storage service .... AAARRRCHHH .


Right now I'm seriously considering going back to XP . :wall:

 

[stragenmitsuko]

Just gave draftsight a try , and it does look and feel quite familiar
to the old autocad .
No more drawing tablet , I guess I'll have to get used to that .

But at least the learning curve won't be to steep , and I'll be able to draw parts
in just a couple of days . Time to move on I guess .

Big thanks to everyone who suggested draftsight . :thumbup:

Pat

 

[tomfilery]

Pat,

I haven't read all of your posts really carefully, but how about loading Oracle VirtualBox (in Linux) and running Windows from there?

You must have a copy of your Windows system to do this (though I understand you can download a free image of XP Pro from Microsoft to run on Virtual Box - they provide it so developers can check for compatibility issues, apparently).

Like other posters, I don't want to keep upgrading things which I'm happy with, nor invest massive amounts of time relearning software when I feel I'm proficient with one program already. To this end, I run Windows Vista on VirtualBox, under Linux and use my TurboCad 16 on there quite happily. You set up a new virtual drive (which acts as the Windows C: drive), allocating part of your main disk space. I also set up a shared directory on my Linux system where I save all the data used by the applications running under VirtualBox Windows and which allows me to access that data (e.g. to mail a file to someone) without running VirtualBox/Windows.

Initially, I thought it would all be too complicated for me to do, but it was fairly straightforward. Only real bit of headscratching I had was related to copying some program files into the shared drive (and all I had to do was change a few file permissions, so it wasn't a massive problem). Any "normal" programs you have a disk for, you load, as normal, within the VirtualBox Windows session.

I gave it a go after reading about someone else having tried it in one of these engineering fora and am pretty pleased I did.

Hope this helps you out.

Regards Tom