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From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Autocad (was OS/2 vs AmigaDOS)
Message-ID: <624@corpane.UUCP>
Date: 12 May 89 12:32:44 GMT
References: <8032@killer.Dallas.TX.US> <8035@killer.Dallas.TX.US>
Organization: Corpane Industries Inc., Louisville, KY
Lines: 51

<607@corpane.UUCP> <11304@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
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In article <11304@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> cthulhu@athena.mit.edu (Jim Reich)
writes:
>In article <607@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes:
>>If AutoCAD came
>>to the Amiga, it would blow away any existing CAD software on the Amiga. 
>What about X-Cad and Ultra-cad?  I've heard very good things about them,
>but never seen one.

To be fair and honest, I haven't actually used either of these. But from the
literature I have seen on X-CAD, it is only 2D. I don't know about ultracad.
I would like to try X-CAD, because I have heard good thing about it, but
given a choice between AutoCAD and X-CAD, ACAD would win for me. 

AutoCAD might seem hard to use to many people at first, but it's really nice
once you get it set up the way you want it. It starts out very basic. What you
get when you first install it is great for mechanical drafting, but not very
good for Archetectural or Electrical. But you can buy (or write) custom
overlays, menus and macros that make ACAD a breeze for both Arch and Elect.

There are dozen's of books available on customizing and using ACAD, and it's
not very difficult. If you can write a basic program you can figure out how to
customize ACAD. The menus (pulldown, and digitizer tablet overlay) are just
text files. They list macros, so when you select a certain pull-down menu
option or select a particular area of the tablet, it merely invokes a chain of
ACAD commands. 

For instance, to insert a Diode into my drawing, I have a little
drawing of a diode on my tablet. When I select that square on the tablet, the
tablet processor sends 'INSERT DIODE' to ACAD. I then have a ghost of a diode
on my crosshairs that I drag around to where I want to insert it. It's very
simple. It also has it's own programming language called AutoLISP for writing
more complex ACAD functions. You can use AutoLISP to write your own commands.

None of the Amiga CAD programs are this flexible. 




-- 
John Sparks   |  {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
[not for RHF] |          sparks@corpane.UUCP         | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 
Mixed Emotions: When you see your mother-in-law back over a cliff in your
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