OT: MACDRAFT story/endorsement

[Joe Lewis Wilkins]

Hi Stephen,

Your experience with CADs in the late 80s was mainly why I had  
originally chosen the Mac as my computer of choice. Also one of the  
reasons that I have such bad feelings toward M$. It was at this point  
in time that Gates was pilfering stuff from Apple to create his soon  
to be "Windows" applications. Apple let him in on all their secrets  
and he probably stole some of their programmers as well. Anyway, had  
Gates taken the knowledge he gained and developed a CAD program to go  
along with Word and Excel, AutoCAD would have never gotten a strangle- 
hold, such as it did, on the entire industry when it moved up to  
Windows from DOS. It has taken years for the likes of ArchiCAD to  
make a dent in the AC market. Eventually, I hope, AC will die a  
painful death when the other programs finally show how terrible, ugly  
and expensive it really is. I haven't used all of them, but I've  
briefly viewed a few. As you said, MacDraft can do everything that  
99% of the users need done. 3D is its one failing, though I think  
they may even have their foot in that door soon.

One of the major advantages that the Mac has had over PCs, from day  
one, is the ability of the users to get their various applications to  
work together. If one won't do it, then try some combination. To a  
certain extent, I've even been able to accomplish this using Virtual  
PC, though it is off my list now that M$ has acquired it. They try to  
get a piece of you - going or coming!

All IMHO,

Joe Wilkins

On Feb 15, 2007, at 12:13 PM, Stephen Barncard wrote:

> In 1988 I had the same need in building studios at A&M Records. We  
> had yet to decide on what platform to use, and what software.  
> Hypercard was just on the horizion. I was an old Apple guy - and  
> leaning toward the Mac anyway, but I thought I'd try to level the  
> playing field.
>
> First I went into a PC store in Simi Valley and asked to see a  
> working demo of the 'best' CAD software. I think they put up  
> Autocad. The background was black, the lines were white and some  
> other basic colors, and although there was a mouse, the whole  
> interface seemed clunky and non-intuitive. I hated it. The PC  
> wasn't ready then.
>
> Then I went to an Egghead software store (remember them?) and found  
> MacDraft. I asked if I could try it out (! try that today !) and  
> they let me play with it for an hour. I could work with it  
> immediately. I bought it on the spot, even before I had a Mac.  
> Great, classic MacDraw interface. We used it to build everything.  
> Studios, track sheets, equipment notations,forms, etc.
>
> They're still around - and the product is at the $290 price point.  
> Just bought an new copy last year. It ain't Powerdraw, but it  
> covers 99 percent of most needs.
>
>>
>> Not a bad option, and I love MacDraft (I once made my living  
>> drawing facilities diagram with it).
>>
>>  Richard Gaskin
>
> -- 
>
>
> stephen barncard
> s a n  f r a n c i s c o
> - - -  - - - - - - - - -
>
>
>
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