Temporary CAD software recommendations for old 2011 Macbook Air laptop?!

Hi guys,

First of all, I'm just getting into CAD and am new to this forum, I appreciate any help I can get and I look forward to getting to a stage where I can start to help out others!

Basically I'm currently shopping for a new machine that I want to run some up-to-date software (maybe Inventor) but for the next few weeks I'm gonna be creating simple 3D printable files on an old MacBook Air 2011...

Long shot, I know... But if anyone knows of any old software which will enable me to get my feet wet with the basics of CAD (hopefully that has something in common with how other CAD packages generally work, as I'll be migrating to them later), it would be much appreciated.

As for what I will be designing, for now it will be limited to housewares, household items etc - so nothing too complicated. But my intention down the line is to move into mechanical designs.

Thanks for any help!

Check http://www.Autodesk.com for Mac versions compatible, and look at renting till you get new PC yes I did say PC not Mac.

If you are going to AutoCAD direction, I suggest you to try Draftsight.

But if you want to go Inventor way, probably Fusion 360? http://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview

You should also be able to set your mac-book to dual boot with windows software using either the built in "bootcamp" or by purchasing parallels (around £30)

This option will allow you to run any cad software under the windows platform.

Please beware though. If you run a mac-book with Retina display, some software may not display correctly due to the high resolution.

Well you are ok on cpu with that macbook air, core i5, yes a a bit slow at 1.6 GHz and only a dual core as well. The real problem is the Intel HD 3000 graphics. As other have said get a PC when you replace your macbook air. Make sure you also get one with a dedicated nVidia graphics card. As suggested Fusion 360 might be a good 1st step until you get your new pc. Good luck

Thanks for the amazing responses guys.

It's actually the first time I've checked out fusion, both because I thought it wouldn't run on my laptop and also because I assumed it would be too expensive. But.... It's unbelievably cheap!!! Absolutely made my day... How can they charge $25 per month and make it free for hobbyists, students and start-ups when inventor was what... $4000 for a license? I don't understand. Is some of the functionality from inventor missing?

Also, I've understood from the beginning that PCs are the way to go for CAD and I'm currently shopping for one... But is there a particular reqson for this? Is it just CAD tradition or is there more to it? I come from a graphic design background where macs are the norm, but I messed around with PCs loads before that so I'm fine going back to PC, but just wondering why it is how it is.

Stevsmith - I've currently got bootcamp installed, but unfortunately it's a tiny bit too old to support the windows-friendly bootcamp software well and it's extremely buggy.

Well there are lots of reasons I guess. Sure macs were the go to for graphic design back in the day but honestly most, if not all graphic design software runs faster on Windows 7 and up as opposed to OSX. There are still a few mac only applications out there that have no equal on the PC side, Pixelmator for example. Most CAD software was simply made for PCs 1st and never really had the mac user base numbers to support a mac port. I mean mac users at their highest count never got over 7% market share. OSX currently sits at 4.2% with windows (all versions) at 90.82%. As a business model why target a small % and not go for the big user base? PCs have more options in hardware and are less expensive for similar builds. When macs 1st switched over from PowerPC to x86-64 there was a well known "OSX tax" users had to pay for the ability to have OSX on the same hardware as a PC. For example I just got a new laptop at work that is basically the same price as a base model macbook pro retina 13". But instead of a dual core i5 (@2.7Ghz) 8gb ram, 128gb ssd and Intel graphics I got a true HT quad i7, 16gb ram, 256gb ssd, 15.6" lcd and 2 gb nvidia GTX 850m graphics. The similar macbook pro would have been $700 more.

Whew, that was long winded for sure. Sorry about that. Hey can always get a new pc laptop and setup a dual boot with Windows 10 and OSX (hackintosh) if you want to. I had an old Dell P4 booting into OSX Tiger back in the day.

Well there are lots of reasons I guess. Sure macs were the go to for graphic design back in the day but honestly most, if not all graphic design software runs faster on Windows 7 and up as opposed to OSX. There are still a few mac only applications out there that have no equal on the PC side, Pixelmator for example. Most CAD software was simply made for PCs 1st and never really had the mac user base numbers to support a mac port. I mean mac users at their highest count never got over 7% market share. OSX currently sits at 4.2% with windows (all versions) at 90.82%. As a business model why target a small % and not go for the big user base? PCs have more options in hardware and are less expensive for similar builds. When macs 1st switched over from PowerPC to x86-64 there was a well known "OSX tax" users had to pay for the ability to have OSX on the same hardware as a PC. For example I just got a new laptop at work that is basically the same price as a base model macbook pro retina 13". But instead of a dual core i5 (@2.7Ghz) 8gb ram, 128gb ssd and Intel graphics I got a true HT quad i7, 16gb ram, 256gb ssd, 15.6" lcd and 2 gb nvidia GTX 850m graphics. The similar macbook pro would have been $700 more.

Whew, that was long winded for sure. Sorry about that. Hey can always get a new pc laptop and setup a dual boot with Windows 10 and OSX (hackintosh) if you want to. I had an old Dell P4 booting into OSX Tiger back in the day.

Yep, I completely see what you mean about the price. I'm not sure about the market share though - that's for desktops and I imagine the majority of offices the world over (the majority of which do non-CAD/ creative work) do run PCs. But in the 'creative professionals' arena I'm sure mac ownership is much higher.

The fact that fusion is available on both platforms is interesting - would probably still go for PC as i do need more bang for my buck right now. Got fusion installed, looking forward to having a play tomorrow when I have some time time! I hope that it has everything I need without having to think about shelling out for a copy of inventor in the future...