NX files on various OS's (xp 64 & 32, linux 64)

[potrero]

This is probably a dumb question, but are there ANY issues in using a given NX file on several different operating systems (such as xp 64 & 32, linux 64). In other words, will anything out-of-the-ordinary occur if the same file were operated upon, then saved on the one of the above OS's, and then opened on any of the other OS's?

 

[JohnRBaker]

The only issue is that you could create and save a file using NX on a 64bit OS which would be TOO large to open with NX on a 32bit OS. Other than that, there should be no problem whatsoever.

Note that UG/NX has always stored Part files in such a manner that they can be opened by UG/NX running on any OS, and this goes back to the days of proprietary systems. In fact once back in 1985 I did a demo where I started on a Data General system running AOS-VS, saved my work in mid-demo. Moved over to a station hooked up to a Digital Equipment VAX running VMS and retrieved my file and finished it up. Then just to prove the point I moved to a 3rd station attached to an IBM 4300 series mainframe running VM/CMS, pulled up my finished model, made a few changes, saved it and then went back to the Data General and open the part to finish-up the round-trip. All of this was in the span of a couple of hours, but one of the primary criteria for the prospect that we were doing the demo for was that they had to know that whatever vendor they decided to do business with would not be locked into a single hardware platform. Needless to say, that little 'exhibition' was all that was needed to settle that issue once and for all. And we continue to this day to develop our products so that the data is completely independent of the OS or the hardware configuration (except of course that 64bit vs. 32bit file size issue).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[potrero]

John,
Great, thanks for the info.

 

[jerry1423]

That has boggled my mind for quite a while at how NX can pull up any Unigraphics file (no matter how old it is), and no matter what operating system it was created on (UNIX, WINDOWS, or whatever)

 

[JohnRBaker]

I have on my laptop a Part file of an aircraft bulkhead created in, and last saved using, Unigraphics V9.1. The file is a 3D wireframe model in full detail and includes a fully dimensioned and annotated J-sized drawing (the last revision on the drawing sheet is dated May, 1993). This file has NOT been processed using any upgrade utilities, which means that when it's opened it's as if someone has just called it up from a 15 1/2 year old archived volume. I test every phase of every new version of NX by opening this part file and have done so for at least the last 10 years. I also keep it with me for those occasions when someone might ask me "How many versions back can NX open a legacy part file?", which when opened in NX 6 would be 16 versions (technically UG V11.0 and V11.1 were different versions).

Now I'm not really sure what OS it was last saved with (we didn't add the Part History record to UG Part files until V10.0) but knowing the customer, I would suspect that it was a DEC VAX system.

So I guess we'd put our support for accessing legacy parts up against anyone in the business (and I'm told that our internal development tests reach back even further).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[hudson888]

I have UGII V5 or earlier training files from when I first started learning. Last time I opened them was on NX-2, but they don't have any real geometry in them and there's no real reason to hold onto that stuff except for nostalgia.

Another file that I did have was built on HP Risc using UGII V8, and that had come by way of a troublesome IGES file so it contained older style parametric surfaces and splines with about 100 knot points and a similar number of poles. That one did manage to defy being opened in UG V10 and NX-2. This is an extremely rare circumstance that we didn't bother to fix because we had no further use of the data. The files now live on a DAT tape that I have no reader for and who knows if it will read anyway after all this time.

I thought that somebody would care to know

Cheers

Hudson

 

[looslib]

I have a copy of the original UGII on a CD, V6.0. I need to look and see if there are any part files for samples on it.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[jerry1423]

I do not think they had CD's back at the time of UGII V6.0. I believe that it was usually all on DAT tapes.

 

[hudson888]

QIC-150's was I think the name for the cassette that they had to install ours from. DAT wasn't available and this was just prior to TK50's becoming available. A friend has an original reel to reel date release from '78. You can see some of this stuff at John's museum site if you wish.

We weren't aware of CD distribution until around UGII V8 or 9 timeframe.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

Actually Unigraphics V6.0 was the first release to be available (optionally) on CD-ROM:

http://www.plmworld.org/home/about/museum/hall/V6_CD-ROM_1.jpg

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.