I am still using AutoCad Releases 10 with DOS. Plotter questions

[SprinklerDesigner2]

Yes, released in 1990 it works great for me and I don't want to upgrade.

In 1990 I paid several thousand for an add on product I just love when a year later the developer was involved in an auto accident and died. Development died with him.

Betcha most of you guys have never seen a C> prompt.

It works great and I for what I do I don't see a need to spend thousands with upgrading especially since I plan on retiring in a few short years. For file conversions I use CadWiz

http://www.cadwizz.com/

Problem is I need a new plotter and does anyone know of software that will print an ancient plot file to a new plotter?

 

[PMR06]

Since you were able to post on a forum, you obviously have access to something more powerful than a 286...

Can you just save the .plt files to floppy and shoot them direct to the plotter from a windows platform. A lot of modern plotters will have software to send .plt files direct to them.

Otherwise, you might consider a used copy of AutoCAD LT. I'm sure you could find one for a couple hundred dollars. Even the boiled down LT should be able to do anything R10 can.

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

Since you were able to post on a forum, you obviously have access to something more powerful than a 286..

Actually it is the 386 version of R10.

Money isn't an issue.

I am approaching retirement and if I stretch it out for another five years I'll be nearing 70 and then I will probably had enough.

 

[civeng80]

Sprinklerdesigner2

I know what your saying, but your 386 may pack it up one day soon then you will have to go to a Vista or Windows 7 system.

Now Vista and windows 7 has got msdos but its a scaled down version. You will have trouble installing your autocad on it.

So if money is not an issue I would seriously consider upgrading at least to an autocad Lt that is windows compatible.

You will be happy you did it even at a young 65.

 

[PMR06]

386... nice! I first learned AutoCAD R10 on a 286, and we had to buy a special math coprocessor to run it.

You know, you might be able to get Windows 95 to install on that 386. It might be old enough for R10 to install, but "new" enough for a Windows plotter driver?

 

[cvg]

I learned on version 2.5 with a C:\> prompt and no mouse (just the arrow keys) and have used every version since up to version 2008 which is what I have now. I had a 10 MB hard disk, 640K memory, math chip and two floppies. The hard disk was optional... (bet nobody out there has heard of a math chip).

I'm with the others, time to upgrade. You can get an older version of AutoCad for cheap and install it on a windows machine. Then convert your version 10 file and plot from the windows machine. Another option, get a version of TurboCad for about $100 and use it to plot your older version 10 files

 

[civeng80]

cvg

As a matter of interest, how did you plot lines without a mouse?

Hope your not going to tell me that you punched in coordinates?

 

[rollupswx]

Where are you located? I have a Roland pen plotter in like new condition I'll sell you (can you still get pens).

Have a 386sx16 with math co-prossesor and AutoCAD (forget what version, about 1990?) that I haven't booted in 10 or so years. Hmmm, I think I hold onto that for nostaglia. Might pull it back out of the box in 10 more years for museum display of how we used to design...

 

[cvg]

arrow keys only, up, down, left, right. use the page up and down keys to speed up or slow down the motion. and yes, coordinates did come in handy as well as COGO

 

[brandoncdg]

You should be able to get that working with a current plotter. I was able to get this thing called SU, by the Muddy Boots Guys, made in early 90's working on a networked plotter. I would get a very standard current plotter though. Like an HP 800 or something like that.

Civil Development Group, LLC
Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading

http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com

http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com/blog

 

[MikeHalloran]

You need to check this for whichever plotter you consider, but I think recent plotters can still accept plot files in ancient dialects.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[beej67]

Dude, what the heck was up with the "math coprocessors." Don't the normal processors do MATH?!??!

But yeah, I had a 286+1 too. And ACAD version 9 or so. I wasn't old enough to drive a car, but I remember such things. My dad also taught me how to use a slide rule. Some day forty years from now I'm going to be the only practicing engineer on the eastern seaboard who knows how to use a slide rule or who remembers the days before the mouse.

I'm with the other half of the thread - don't screw with upgrading, it's more time and effort than your old brain wants to deal with, especially given how you've apparently got a proprietary plug in module that does everything you need and isn't available in modern CAD.

You should by all rights be able to figure out how to plot to a modern plot device with your old CAD software, but if not, then don't bother with AutoCAD LT, just get one of many IntelliCAD variants and use that instead. IntelliCAD was a grand experiment in open source CAD software, that didn't exactly meet its expectations, but did yield a host of other CAD knockoffs whose command structures and GUI interfaces were almost identical to AutoCAD. And they're cheap - 300 bucks or so. I use progeCAD. It's got a few minor bugs, but for many thousands of dollars cost difference I can handle bugs.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[cfee]

I agree with beej67. No need to upgrade. Check & see if a plotter you're considering understands HPGL. The old pen-up/pen-down commands became the standard for a whole GENERATION of output devices from wide-carriage dot-matrix printers to laser printers to large format plotters and eventually inkjet plotters. In your ACAD-10 plotter configuration area, just select any hp-standard, & experiment. That's what we used to do. There were a couple of different choices, but they were hp standards, and even a non-compatible printer could be used with ACAD-10 by selecting one of these instead. The only question these days is if the plotter you're interested in understands the old hpgl (HewlettpPackard Graphics Language).

As a side note, once I needed a wide-format plotter. B-size prints wouldn't do. So I went out and scarfed up a wide-carriage 24-pin printer for $15 (!), configured my ACAD to hpgl, and plotted across 2 sheets on the printer, for a nearly C-Size output ! It was fast (enough), I had lucked into a 4-color ribbon model, so I even had rudimentary color capabilities, and the output was crisp even by today's standards. Imagine my excitement when I found an outlet for roll-vellum with pinfeed tractor holes! They were perforated to seperate from the sheet and the results were spectacular ! I was in blue-print heaven ! It was all dashed when I found a cache of canon wide-format accounting printers that were ink-jet (300DPI !!!) that accepted pinfeed paper. Canon discontiuned the model tho, when they discovered people were buying them for $500 instead of their baby D-Sizers for 3 times the price ! Oh well. I was stuck with the dot-matriz guy, and my client had 5 of the nicest $500 near-C-size "plotters" you could find !

BTW- Math co-procers were an ABSOLUTE MUST if you did any but the tiniest drawings. REGEN was king, and while the main processor would do all the calcs called for, your drawing session came to a CRAWL without the massive hardware upgrade of a MATH Co-Processor ! Whew ! Those were some exciting days- wrestling AutoCAD vs System Resources, within the Hardware vs. Software Wars ! Whew !

Good luck and let us know how it goes !

C.F.

 

[brandoncdg]

When I hear computer stuff from that 286-386 time period, immediately I think of the game, Strike Commander, which brought all computers for a long time to their knees. So what did the OP end up doing?

Civil Development Group, LLC
Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading

http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com

http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com/blog

 

[chicopee]

How many 5 1/4" floppy diskettes does Autocad Relase 10 take to load up?

 

[remargable]

After years of searching, I finally found a program to read my old .PLT files (and quite well, I might add!). Worth every penny of ~$85!

http://www.swplot.com/splot.htm

Evaluation version is available, and now I see there's a "lite" version as well for ~$49.