Between the Lines

An Epic Piece of Autodesk History –The Nozzle

An amazing surprise as I walked into the office this morning, Kevin Schneider presented me with the historical original nozzle used in many sample files and demos of AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor over the past 34 years. AutoCAD 2.6 included a sample drawing of a nozzle that has been one of the iconic sample drawings in AutoCAD release history, known affectionately as “the nozzle.” The creator of the drawing Don Strimbu designed the nozzle in 1983 using a primitive featured... Read more →

Throwback Thursday – The Coveted Mug

About 25 years ago I was a mechanical designer, Autodesk customer, and a contributing member of the Autodesk Beta Programs. I received free products occasionally like tee-shirts, and other items as rewards for bug reporting and feedback, but one gift stood out. It was a simple black ceramic coffee mug with Autodesk logo in gold lettering. I used that mug proudly for years until the Autodesk logo wore off leaving me with a simple black ceramic coffee mug. Many years... Read more →

Throwback Thursday – The Roaring Twenties of Computing

This is the 35th year of Autodesk and AutoCAD, and in the past year I have exchanged emails with the founder of Autodesk, John Walker. I asked John about the beginnings of Autodesk and also asked about what he sees in the future of technology given that he was at the beginning of the wave of PCs back in the 80s and took big risks on several early technology including one that became the most used CAD in the world... Read more →

Throwback Thursday – AutoCAD 35 Years

Autodesk and AutoCAD was created 35 years ago this year. There are many celebrations looking back over the years, and also looking forward to the future. Autodesk was founded by John Walker, so I emailed with John on his perspective for the 35 years and asked him some questions to share. Photo of John Walker when I met him at his home in Switzerland 10 years ago. Shaan (me): What was your favorite AutoCAD Feature or command back in the... Read more →

35年AutoCAD庆祝活动

于7月3号成功登顶7546米的慕士塔格峰（新疆），带着一面"I Love AutoCAD“的35周年纪念旗子。 Hill是一名AutoCAD的资深老用户，他在9... Read more →

35 Years of AutoCAD Celebration Goes Way Up

An AutoCAD Team member, Hill Fang has summited with his 35 years of AutoCAD flag. Hill Fang summited Muztagh-Ata, 7,546m / 24,757ft, on July 3rd,2017 with an “I Love AutoCAD” 35 Year anniversary flag. Hill started using AutoCAD back in AutoCAD 2.x in the 80’s. This is not the first time Hill has taken AutoCAD flags to summits of mountains. Keep Calm & Love AutoCAD on China’s, Mt. Banji, at 5,430m Hill Fang on right. Climbing 24,757 feet is no... Read more →

Throwback Thursday – Autodesk Mugs

Back in the day Autodesk used to be fond of giving coffee mugs to people. I will never remember my first coffee mug as an Autodesk customer and beta tester in 1995. It was a black shiny mug with the Autodesk calipers logo and text in gold flake. A couple years back a fellow Autodesker gave me a much older Autodesk coffee mug for the collection. You can see the mug in the second photo sitting on an unopened early... Read more →

32nd Release of AutoCAD

AutoCAD 2018 was just released, but did you know it was the 32nd release of AutoCAD and that its beta codename was Omega? I maintain a list of all of these and a few more at: http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/autocad-release-history.html AutoCAD Release History AutoCAD 1.0 December 1982 (Release 1) AutoCAD 1.2 April 1983 (Release 2) AutoCAD 1.3 August 1983 (Release 3) AutoCAD 1.4 October 1983 (Release 4) AutoCAD 2.0 October 1984 (Release 5) AutoCAD 2.1 May 1985 (Release 6) AutoCAD 2.5 June 1986... Read more →

Photos from Yesterdays 35th Birthday of Autodesk

Yesterday Autodesk celebrated its 35th birthday and employees, partners, and customers joined in to mark the occasion. From Portland, San Francisco, Manchester, Boston, Toronto, Moscow, Neuchâtel, and many other locations and remote offices there were employees in old Autodesk memorabilia and cakes. It was a lot of fun seeing all the nostalgia and stories in Twitter, Facebook, and other social media as well as in person. In the Lake Oswego Oregon office which is in a suburb of Portland, we... Read more →

Happy 35th Birthday Autodesk!

On this day 35 years ago in Mill Valley California, Autodesk was founded. Our customers and partners around the world (technically outer space as well) have done so many amazing things over the past 35 years, and so many amazing things yet to come. Today, many are wearing Autodesk old memorabilia such as old shirts and sharing old stories. I am wearing my “AutoCAD R14 Faster, Smarter, Better” tee shirt. I have an office full of my old Autodesk shirts... Read more →

35 Years of Autodesk and AutoCAD Memories

In response to my post about AutoCAD turning 35, my email inbox and twitter feed is full and I am so grateful for the response. It is so amazing to read about when you started using AutoCAD and the stories about Autodesk and also the photos. A little known fact is AutoCAD 1.0 wasn’t shipped to customers so the first release was actually AutoCAD version 1.1. Here is quote from a customer that started on the very first shipping AutoCAD... Read more →

Amazing 35 Years of AutoCAD

In response to my post about AutoCAD turning 35, my email inbox and twitter feed is full and I am so grateful for the response. It is so amazing to hear the memories of so many including some that have used AutoCAD it’s entire life of 35 years. You can email me your story about your use of AutoCAD over the past 35 years, the projects, and possibly include a photo of you and old AutoCAD memorabilia or moments like... Read more →

35 Years of AutoCAD

Next month AutoCAD will celebrate it’s 35th birthday. Just think about it, AutoCAD is hitting middle age. It is a pretty amazing milestone not only as a software product that has been used by millions of people around the world, but also that it is still quite popular 35 years later it was released. AutoCAD has been around longer than Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Windows. Autodesk and myself will have several special posts and events to celebrate the 35th birthday... Read more →

Throwback Thursday - AutoCAD 86

I received another great addition to my collection of old AutoCAD releases, a AutoCAD 86 version 1.40 manual circa February 1984 from Mike Boldrick. This was one of the first available releases of AutoCAD ever shipped to customers. I will publish more of this old manual in the future for nostalgic fun as we will soon celebrate the 35th year of AutoCAD. In AutoCAD 86 version 1.40 there was no UNDO command, just an OOPS command as well as only... Read more →

AutoCAD Family Feud Survey

Survey Says, Be at Autodesk University for: DING! Great classes, networking, seeing what the future holds, and fun! Please join Heidi Hewett, Lynn Allen and me at the AutoCAD Family Feud Tuesday 1:00pm at Autodesk University. We need your responses for the Feud at this survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q25PT65. It only takes a minute or two. Details on the social media reception coming soon for those that actively participate in social media throughout the year covering Autodesk products and technologies.There will also... Read more →

Throwback Thursday – Not all Bugs are Bad

Back in AutoCAD R12, R13, and R14 there was a bug that was not bad, a bug with benefits. The bug allowed you to speed up the plot regen by over 200 percent faster making the plot preview and plotting much faster. All you had to do what hit the keyboard spacebar while the plot was regenerating and BAM it sped up to light speed. Several years back when I was on the AutoCAD Team I discussed this good old... Read more →

Throwback Thursday - When Was that AutoCAD Feature Added

When was 3D or Dimensioning added to AutoCAD? A great list from Autodesk founder John Walker of major features in AutoCAD and when they were added to AutoCAD up to 1992. AutoCAD Major Feature Release History Read more →

Throwback Thursday – Me in 1997

In 1997 I was an Autodesk customer working at Oregon Iron Works here in the Portland Oregon area. I gave an interview as an AutoCAD R14 early pre-release alpha tester on how much better AutoCAD R14 was than the previous AutoCAD R13 release. Rohit Arora found the AutoCAD R14 demo CD-ROMs today and posted to LinkedIn tagging me. Warning: This image and video is not for the faint of heart. Video: https://youtu.be/fThsTwTNkQc Read more →

Throwback Thursday – AutoCAD Simulator

Back in the day of AutoCAD Release 12 there was an actual product simulator available as a tutorial training product. Read more →

AutoCAD 2017 is Release 32 or 31

I am in the process of updating my AutoCAD History page after we just released the new AutoCAD 2017 Monday March 21, 2016. AutoCAD 2017 was codenamed Nautilus in alpha and beta testing prior to being officially released publicly. Update: My good friend Vladimir Michl of http://www.cadforum.cz spotted the error in my accounting he said AutoCAD 2017 should be 31 not 32 because I copy pasted an error and 2016 should have been release 30. While he is absolutely correct,... Read more →

Nozzle DWG for Throwback Thursday

AutoCAD 2.6 included a sample drawing of a nozzle that has been one of the iconic sample drawings in AutoCAD release history. While it may seem trivial today to draw this, back in the early 1980’s it was really challenging for the creator of the drawing Don Strimbu in 1983 using a primitive featured AutoCAD running on floppy disks and a slow 8086 computer. I have a running version of AutoCAD 2.18 that I run in a virtual machine from... Read more →

Throwback Thursday - AutoCAD at COMDEX 1984

This 5.25” floppy represents the very early days of AutoCAD where the introduction of the 2 year old AutoCAD version 2 was being exhibited at the FALL COMDEX 1984. AutoCAD 86 was first shown publicly at COMDEX 1982. It is amazing how far technology and Autodesk has come and transformed over the past 30 plus years. Read more from Autodesk Founder John Walker about COMDEX 1984 and some of the photos. Read more →

Throwback Thursday - AutoCAD 86 Floppies

You may have seen a 5.25” floppy in the 1980’s, but what about a 8” floppy? Back in 1984 AutoCAD-86 version 2.40 was released for the NEC platform on 8” floppy disks. Increasingly these days most under the age of 30 have never seen a floppy disk and don’t recognize what the floppy image on the standard software “save” icons really is. Read more →

TBT Throwback Thursday AutoCAD 1.4 Floppies

AutoCAD 1.4 circa 1984. The floppies believe it or not are still readable provided you have a floppy drive. Read more →

AutoCAD 2.18 Fun Challenge from Autodesk University Australia

Recently my Irish friend living in Australia Sean Twomey asked me how I managed to get AutoCAD 2.18 to run on modern hardware. I told him all you needed was to create a virtual machine and then create a virtual disk smaller than 10Mb because in 1985 apparently a hard drive beyond 10Mb was crazy thinking the 30 year old AutoCAD version would not launch. Sean got his version running just in time for Autodesk University Australia in Sydney held... Read more →