I understand the resistance to Windoz, I was a programmer it the late
1960s when IBM virtually invented FUD (Fear, Doubt & Uncertainty) as a
marketing tool. The gorilla may have moved to the state of
Washington,
but the game has changed little. I give my energy and money to
whatever
alternatives I can find, but I think I am choosing my battles with
some
care when I occasionally accept (except) a Windows based program that
takes me somewhere I cannot go otherwise.
TurboCAD, is one such product. Actually, from my experience, it is
something of an alternative in itself. In the microcomputer era, Auto
Desk staked the first clam to CAD supremacy with AutoCAD. When you
dominate at area of commerce, you get to charge what the traffic will
bear (sound familiar?), and AutoCAD used their position in just
this way.
Being first brings with it problems as well as advantages. The early
micros were very limited, and AutoCAD had to live within those bounds.
As the power of the machines leaped ahead, you had a steady
accretion of
functions and tools, and, like a city with ancient beginnings, the
central features remained largely unchanged while the environs
sprawled. Anyone who remodels their product risks alienating the
customers, who make it all possible, if they eliminate the old ways.
Better just to add, and leave what?s there alone. The main
features of
London were probably laid down by some cow that stepped one direction
rather than another in the long forgotten past.
The venerability is that upstarts begin with a clean sheet and
powerful
machines--machines powerful enough to accommodate the user generously.
?Intuitive?, ?easy?, ?natural? are the descriptions people begin to
use. When choosing between a complicated, awkward program that I
could
not afford and a slick, powerful modestly priced application, I chose
the ?future?. I felt very clever running circles around the ?standard?
products at a fraction of the cost. I made this choice twice, and
each
time, after my investment of time and money, Auto Desk bought my
shinny
new program and killed it. I would check with my manufacturer and
find
that there was no longer support and there would never be an update.
I know I am inconsistent; recommending tolerance, when needed, for
Windows, but unwilling to compromise about CAD, but I?d rather used a
straight edge and compass than spend a penny on AutoCAD.
So what is my alternative? CAD is not an essential tool of my
business;
but the little engineering I do is greatly enabled by these wonderful
programs. (There is an old saying among sailors: ?The smaller the
boat,
the bigger the sextant.?) I simply would not be able to do much of
what
I do without CAD doing the hard work, precisely. When you employ the
third dimension, you have moved from drawing to modeling. Things
can be
built and fitted to the needed tolerance; components can be sliced
across lines of force so that questions of strength are little more
that
area arithmetic. You can design a skyscraper and include the pins and
tumbler of the lock on the front door all in the same model. As you
can hear, there are times when I am puzzled that CAD is not
regarded as
entertainment software.
I have been reluctant to add my voice to those recently commenting
here
on CAD programs as my experiences include only the current version of
one program, a trial here and there of others and two dead orphans.
Nevertheless, I though I might add something worth while if I
passed on
what I know and left comparisons to those with broader experience.
A dozen years ago I decide to try TurboCAD. It was comparatively
cheep,
and seemed to have amazingly encompassing functionality. When I
found,
near the bottom of an ad, the promise that TurboCAD would never sell
out, I knew what they were talking about.
There were two levels of product, TurboCAD Pro that did 90% of what
the
?Standard? programs did (probably 110% of what I needed!) and TurboCAD
Deluxe. Pro was cheep and Deluxe cost so little that I had trouble
giving credit to its many capabilities. Cautiously, I purchased
Deluxe
and was delighted to find it was everything that was promised. The
next upgrade found me confident enough to buy Pro.
TurboCAD?s celebrating 21?s years in the market, has a world-wide
installed base, and looks to be too big to be swallowed any of the
bigger fish. No doubt TurboCAD has entered middle age, with athletic
youngsters popping up to challenge. TurboCAD is not perfect;
unexpected events have occurred while I was workinc, usually when I am
trying something new and make several sequential moves so dumb no
programmer could have anticipated. TurboCAD will do periodic saves,
automatically if you wish, and I usually leave a trail of earlier work
by saving each session or stage with a new file name. I have not seen
any drawing or rendering on Rotary Engine that I could not duplicate
with TurboCAD. Of course, it could be that I?d have spent three times
as long just making a duplicate of something easily originated in
Rino.
Those wanting to have a look at TurboCAD can find Deluxe at
http://www.imsisoft.com/prodinfo.asp?t=1&mcid=431
<http://www.imsisoft.com/prodinfo.asp?t=1&mcid=431>
And Pro at http://www.imsisoft.com/prodinfo.asp?t=1&mcid=370
<http://www.imsisoft.com/prodinfo.asp?t=1&mcid=370>
Oh, and TurboCAD is available for Macs.
I found Deluxe available via PriceGrabber.com for $46.95 and Pro for
$510.54. Free trials are downloadable, and there is a suite of
complimentary products such as a CAD symbols package with 30 million
items, tutorials and much more. The Reference Manual is 523 pages and
is actually written in English.
I know that TurboCAD Pro will take time to learn, but I have enough
experience to know that ?easy? too often means ?limited?. If you only
need a sketch program, there are surly more sensible choices.
I?ll be very interested in comments from anyone with a better informed
judgment.
Grant
Grant, Turbo Cad Mac Pro V-2 is not like Turbo Cad for Windoz at
all. When I first looked at it, I could not believe my eyes,
because it is an exact replica of Ashlar's Graphite only better, in
that excellent 3d capability including solid modeling and surfaces
are included. And it is universal binary meaning that it runs
native on Intel Macs.
Graphite cost $1395.00. TurboCadMac ProV2 with student discount
cost $99.00. That is not an annual fee. I own the program
forever. I might also add that tech support on line is free and
quick.
The rest of the story. There is a company called CSI that makes high
end cad packages. They can be checked out at
www.csi-concepts.com.
Apparently they were the original developers of Graphite which they
sold to Ashlar (or it could have been the other way around). Anyway,
a law suit ensued with both companies retaining rights to the
program which CSI then sold to Turbo Cad. The literature and
tutorials from Turbo Cad still reference CSI.
Bottom line if you are a Mac pilot something very good has
happened. Jerry
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