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From: tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: XCAD for Amiga
Message-ID: <5160105@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 27 Oct 90 02:37:26 GMT
References: <1091@iceman.jcu.oz>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 28

allen@ns.network.com (Allen Middleton) writes:

>Don't know about XCAD, but UltraDesign reads AutoCAD files, and it supports
>AMAX.  (Not that I'm trying to recommend UltraDesign, I purchased it, got
>the copy from Briwall last weekend, I was very disappointed.  I had 0k
>fastram left on my Amiga 500/1meg, it was dismally slow, was missing
>simple features like area select for multiple objects [each object to be
>operated on had to be selected individually, a pain], it guru'ed several
>times when I probably tried to perform an operation incorrectly.  Maybe
>I'm unfare, I'm used to high end schematic entry programs such as Daisy's
>ACE, and perhaps I was spoiled some.  I'm going to check out Professional
>Draw, I can live without the dimensioning stuff.  I don't want to slander
>this program, at least the person who wrote the Amazing Computing review
>thought it was pretty good, though it definitely has a way to go to be
>as good as it could.)
>----------

I use XCAD regularly (the original version, replaced by XCAD Prof.).  I
am doing plots for a fellow that is using UltraDesign, so I've had a
chance to look at it, too.  Though I wouldn't pay to switch, I 
thought UltraDesign has some good points, and certainly didn't notice
it being buggy or crashing the machine.  XCAD takes a minimum of 1.5
megs to load, and to do anything significant you better have 2.5 megs
(and a hard disk).  Except for text rendering, I find its speed to be
pretty good on a stock Amiga @ 7 MHz.  Summary: each program has its
points plus and minus, but I think XCad is overall a little better.
However, Ultradesign has much more active support at least on this
continent.