It was the spring of 1986 when I needed to draw electronic circuits board for my Electronics Laboratory class taken to fulfill Physics major requirements. TA taught us how to use PC-Spice at the computer lab and to use PC-Spice we had to wait in long lines for our turns. I managed to get a copy of PC-Spice to install to my 286 AT PC. But PC-Spice wouldn't run without 80287 math coprocessor which costed more than $400 at that time. Being a penny pinching student, I had to go to a computer lab after midnight to use machines.

Copies of VersaCAD and AutoCAD were around the computer lab and I installed both to my 286 for evaluation. At that time 286 had 20 MB HD and that was more than enough to store both and several more programs. Manuals for AutoCAD were easily found in bookstores than VersaCAD's. So I started to learn AutoCAD 2.62 by following manuals to draw various stuffs more out of fun rather than a recommendation. I found VersaCAD had better tools for 2-D and 3-D than AutoCAD. After finding out a great majority of people use AutoCAD than VersaCAD, I decided to stick with AutoCAD even though I liked VersaCAD better.

Microstation Intergraph had all the features I liked, but I couldn't use it much as it was available only in the lab. There was a UNIX-based ArrisCAD which looked best CAD program to me. I couldn't even think of having that run on my 286 which was running Xenix and DOS 2.6 at that time.

Even when using AutoCAD to draw 2-D PCB and 3-D mechanical parts for stress analysis and modeling, I kept thinking that VersaCAD had better features, so should I change to it; Why didn't Intergraph Co. make Intergraph running on PCs; ArrisCAD would produce real professional looks, but the hardware costs were too high. Just to draw PCB, PC-Spice was better suited. To make 3-D models, I had to use AutoCAD for several years.

Then AutoCAD R10 came out with enhanced 3-D features and AutoShade for rendering in late 80's. 386 PC was just powerful enough to impress clients with 3-D wireframe models and drawings to show off my CAD skills, but not surface textures and reflections. With AutoLISP programming to implement AutoCAD commands, the power of AutoCAD looked limitless. Fortunately at that time, I felt comfortable with LISP and Scheme already, and learning AutoLISP dialect was just a fun to do.

By early 90's, 3D Studio became my favorite 3-D modeling tool instead of AutoCAD R10 for my graphics consulting works. AutoCAD R12 was released and I had to reconfigure AutoCAD settings which was time-consuming and boring. I didn't draw 2-D quite much by that time and used R10 more often for 2-D drawings than R12 or R13. Almost for over a year AutoCAD R10, R12 and R13 cohabitated in my cramped 486 540 MB hard disk taking up valuable spaces. It has been only a month since I use only R13 for 2-D drawing after having deleted R10 and R12 program files.

Having explored close to the limits of AutoCAD R10 and AutoLISP, AutoSketch and AutoCAD LT which were the junior versions of AutoCAD, were like baby's toys and I threw away after a couple of tries. DesignCAD and several low cost CAD programs were also on the market for a while. Those were not powerful enough to draw complex drawings, even though any of those were more user-friendly than AutoCAD. I didn't bother to try Mac-based CADs, and have had occasional but not full time access to Silicon Graphics Workstations. To make top-notch modeling and animation, I think SGI is the only way to go. For conceptualizing and delineating rough ideas into wireframe, I've been satisfied with AutoCAD and 3D Studio considering the availability and the cost.

VersaCAD and ArrisCAD has been long forgotten by CAD users. Microstation Intergraph can now be run on PCs. As it used to have better tools than AutoCAD and is still on the market, I believe it still has better tools than AutoCAD. But I don't think of changing to it as I've used AutoCAD for 10 years. I started to use AutoCAD without liking it much. All the CAD programs I tried, both PC- and UNIX-based ones, have better features than AutoCAD. Some people say any Mac-based CAD is better than AutoCAD. Judging from that and based upon my humble experiences, AutoCAD is the least user-friendly, but not necessarily less powerful than any other CAD programs. But AutoCAD is the only one surviving in the PC CAD market for the past ten years which is parallel with the development of PC. As more people use it than any other CAD packages, it helps me to show off my CAD skills in any environments and to exchange ideas with colleagues. I'm not promoting AutoCAD at all, but just telling you my CAD experiences. (4-17-96)