AutoCAD alternatives

[Carroll Grigsby]

On Friday 16 July 2004 07:25 pm, Jude wrote:
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> On Friday 16 July 2004 02:37, Carroll Grigsby wrote:
> > 1. AutoCad got married to Windows some time in the mid 90's, abandoning
> > it's ties to pure MS-DOS and Unix versions. Wine? No. AFAIK, no one
> > successfully run AutoCad using Wine, although there have been reports of
> > successes with AutoCad Lite.
>
> This is not strictly true; there is another option.
>
> I run AutoCAD R14 (the last version before the IMHO misguided lock-in to
> windows) quite happily under Crossover Office with no windows partition. I
> use it for mostly 2D/3D mechanical work, and have been for a couple of
> years. It works flawlessly, including happily running the many AutoLISP
> programs I've written over the years. It is also noted as working with Wine
> on their apps database.

I guess I missed that one, possibly because I was running AutoCAD 2000 in 
those days. I never used R14; we went from R13 (both DOS and Win) to 2000.


> If the features you require are only available in the latest versions then
> this will not help, but R14 is a mature and very complete app, and more
> than capable of doing everything I need. Might be worth looking into for
> you. Also bear in mind you may have file compatibility hassles with later
> versions. This is not an issue for me as I do not have to deal with
> incoming files from later versions. Still, it's a possibilty.

When I first retired, I thought that it might be fun to keep my hand in. Then 
I remembered why I retired. End of project.

Thanks for your comments -- next time I'll do a some more searching (or be 
less dogmatic in what I post).

-- cmg