Chair Leg for Parker Furniture.

Created using Autodesk’s AutoSolid software (circa 1987), this chair leg was drawn using a hand drawn detail drawing, to demonstrate to one of our premier furniture makers that PC modelling was a possibility, in reply to the sales pitch they were getting from the big CAD boys of the day.

It was UNIX based software Autodesk acquired and its brochure, renamed, could be used for Inventor today.  The software was running on a 386 based Compaq computer and IBM graphics and a similar digitizer as previously mentioned, ‘dot matrix’ monochrome printer was used for output.

Again as we had already found with MicroSolid the methods used to create a model were similar, tho’ MicroSolid’s colour ability and greater flexibility in shape creation and placement made it a better opening product than AutoSolid.  Another interesting point is that both these early packages could read Autodesk’s .DXF files.  As it turned out this was very important as it extended these packages significantly.  In both instances however the creators of these packages refused to accept this point, quite openly telling me this was an ‘incorrect’ application of the software.  The MicroSolid crew quickly changed tune when I showed them why but Autodesk to this very day still has not understood what they were shown and continues to make the same mistakes over and over again!

Equally the transfer of .DXF files into MicroSolid was absolutely trouble free but into AutoSolid it not only had to be converted from DOS to UNIX, its transfers were still not without its problems and Autodesk owned both pieces of software; sound familiar?

Multiple windows and ‘pop-up’ menus were what UNIX bought to PC-CAD that was both handy and different to what we currently had in AutoCAD and had already seen in MicroSolid.

Note! Productivity comes, in CAD, from FLEXIBILITY not fixed rules and Autodesk’s response to our overtures at this early stage were a foretaste of what we now have.

R. Paul Waddington
cadWest.