Grex Micros Conference

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Grex Micros Item 37: Looking for common CAD system file formats
Entered by jeffk on Fri Aug 28 01:21:19 UTC 1992:

I'm looking for file formats for common CAD formats.  DXF is a definite.
A friend said there is some new CALS standard format coming out, but I don't
know anything about it.  And, anything by, ugh, IBM.

Thanks for any help you can give.

10 responses total.

#1 of 10 by mistik on Fri Aug 28 01:30:40 1992:

Could you summarize the info on scanners and OCR you got if you get a chance
please,  I need some info regarding that.  (it is not the right item, but
I forgot which conference the other one was in)

#2 of 10 by jeffk on Sun Aug 30 01:11:41 1992:

Summary: info comes down the line in a proprietary format and it is generally
a serial format.  There is an EXCELLENT article in the June 1992 Byte Magazine
that explains all about how scanners work.  I copied it, but left it at my
office...I'm 90% sure its June, but it might be May.  Hmmm...  Assume June
unless I correct.

#3 of 10 by mistik on Sun Aug 30 04:07:45 1992:

Thanks. I know where to look for now :)

#4 of 10 by keesan on Sun Feb 28 02:58:22 1999:

Someone wants to buy a computer from Kiwanis to learn CAD, and a printer. 
We are planning to set him up with a 386 with 40 MHz and 8M Ram and a math
coprocessor (our best model) that could take a 486 upgrade chip.  Will CAD
programs run a lot better with teh 486 chip?  Where can we get one cheap? 
One of our volunteers has some CAD software, what is the latest version that
will run on our system (386) and are older versions about as good?  His is
no later than version 10, for which we have two manuals.
For a printer we hope to fix a laser printer with a plotter cartridge, that
has a paper jam.  If we do not succeed, would a dot matrix wide carriage be
best, or an inkjet printer?  
        Is there anything else useful to know about running CAD?  The printout
will not be in color.  I don't know what he wants it for.  He just wants to
learn CAD, says Jim.

#5 of 10 by n8nxf on Mon Mar 1 11:36:47 1999:

I designed my house, and many other things, on a 486DX66 running Cadkey
under DOS and was very happy with the performance.  With the newer,
Windoze based versions of Cadkey and Autocad you should have more MHz
and a more recent CPU.

#6 of 10 by keesan on Mon Mar 1 19:55:10 1999:

We have 40MHz and a 386DX to work with, and are hoping to use AutoCAD 10 for
DOS.  Jim thinks.  He will find out today.

#7 of 10 by gregb on Tue Mar 2 04:04:16 1999:

If I remember right, AutoCad, in general, is somewhat of a resource hog 
(lots of HD space, RAM needed).  Excellent program, though.

#8 of 10 by keesan on Tue Mar 2 21:41:23 1999:

What amount of HD and RAM does it need?  We have 8M and 160M and the comptuer
will be used for nothing else but CAD.  A DOS version, we will remove Windows.
Version 10 for DOS is what someone came up with for us.  He will show us what
to do with it Thursday if his flu is better by then.  Yesterday he tried to
help by phone instead.  THe laser printer jams every time so we will use a
wide carriage 24 pin printer with AutoCAD.

#9 of 10 by gregb on Tue Mar 2 22:50:00 1999:

Re. 8:  I went to Autodesk's site to try and get the specs, but had no 
luck.  However, if that's all your putting on it ('sides DOS, of 
course), you shouldn't have any problem (knock wood!).

Good luck.

#10 of 10 by keesan on Tue Mar 2 23:23:41 1999:

We discovered that someone had already had AutoCAd on that computer but had
erased all but the directory itself before donating it, so it should indeed
work.  We have 160M to work with, that should be plenty.  Thanks for wishing
us luck.  Jim always wanted to learn AutoCAD but did not have time, now he
is learning it to teach it to someone else.  We have a couple books.

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