The world would be a better place...

[ajpower]

If GDS had been the universal drafting system of choice. GDS was a very high tech and extremely expensive system that was designed by McDonnell Douglas a few decades ago. It had some users in London, Tokyo, Chicago etc. but was beyond the reach of any average architectural firm. It's a pity because GDS was simple but powerful and in many ways better than Autocad even today. There may be a few who have heard of it, but it's days are all but over.

[Teeds]

marketing my friend ... you forgot marketing

DOS was crappy too, but Bill knew how to market it.

Computervision was a great CAD program in the day.

AutoCAD and VersaCAD duked it out for a few years. AutoCAD won because of marketing.

It is harder to stay at the top of the heap though.

[chrisdarmanin]

It is harder to stay at the top of the heap though.

but roots certainly help

[chrisdarmanin]

If GDS had been the universal drafting system of choice. GDS was a very high tech and extremely expensive system that was designed by McDonnell Douglas a few decades ago. It had some users in London, Tokyo, Chicago etc. but was beyond the reach of any average architectural firm. It's a pity because GDS was simple but powerful and in many ways better than Autocad even today. There may be a few who have heard of it, but it's days are all but over.

can you still find it? is it still being developed?

[ajpower]

You probably can't find it anywhere. It was first copyrighted in 1980 and the last release was in 1999. We ran it off of a big Prime CPU with Tektronix workstations. Over a million dollar investment at the time. Then came DEC stations and finally a version for windows where we gave up the tablet and used a mouse with a ball instead of crosshairs. It could be readily translated to Autocad R12, so we had no trouble dealing with consultants.

[ReMark]

I think what happened was cheaper, better, faster software came along and killed it dead. Not to mention desktop PCs; they brought computing power to the masses. It wasn't necessary to have a computer the size of a garage or one that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Now if only someone would come along and teach the same lesson to AutoDe$k re: their software.

[Teeds]

Now if only someone would come along and teach the same lesson to AutoDe$k re: their software.

You think Autodesk is bad ... try the ESRI line of GIS products ... they make most Autodesk products look cheap in comparison.

I seem to remember that the Computervision workstations were north of 250K each and they ran three shifts in order to get maximum utilization out of the investment.

We were not supposed to bother the cad jockeys that ran the stations as their time was too valuable to waste on mere conversation.

Of course that was before the web, forums, email, cell phones and text messaging ...

talk about the good old days ... when employees actually worked ... LOL

[achen]

any1 know where i can get free cad models?


Edit: Achen, please start a new thread if you have a question. Posting at the end of someone else's thread really limits the amount of exposure your question will receive. It's also not polite and it derails the current thread.

Try here for free Cad blocks and 3D models: http://cben.net/ Otherwise, start a new thread.

[Bill Tillman]

I recall way back in 1982 when the drafting dept supervisor asked me and another drafter if we wanted to attend a free CADD seminar. It was at a local hotel and while I can't recall the spelling of the software correctly it was MacAuto. It was by MacDonald-Douglas and it did structural analysis as well. We didn't understand the seminar very much and just used it as a way to get out of the office for 1/2 day plus it included a free lunch. When it was over we just went right back to our drawing boards and thinking about how soon we would get off work and go chase women at the clubs.

[SLW210]

MacAuto stood for McDonnell-Douglas Automation. I do not recall it actually being called GDS, but that was the file extension used for files I am pretty sure. Look into the history of UNIGRAPHICS, it is still holding its own as far as I can tell.