I never had direct contact with John Walker. Outside of family and friends, the Autodesk founders probably had the biggest impact on my life.
In 11th grade, I submitted a grant application on behalf of my school. I wanted to draw molecules. My teacher (for our voc tech program) gave me the blank paperwork and said "go for it".
Some time later, two NEC APC III showed up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APC_series#APC_III Running AutoCAD. On 8" floppy media. The manuals were in 3-ring binders. Hot damn, I loved those computers. So much better than the more common IBM PC-XT. I'd take portions of the manuals home over night to study.
One of the upgrades featured AutoLISP. Version 2.17b? That really lit my fire. Like LOGO turtle on steroids or something.
I eventually published some shareware using AutoCAD/AutoLISP. Pretty good money for a kid.
AutoCAD, AutoShade, AutoSOLID, AutoFlix (Animator), HP plotters (using drafting pens and inks), transition from sneaker-net to LANs... Truly mind blowing stuff. Democratizing all that high-end workstation stuff (eg Apollo) for us normies.
Autodesk begat an entire ecosystem from scratch. Dealer channels, third party add-ons and utilities, conferences, magazines, curriculum, consultants, custom graphics cards (and drivers), huge CRTs, crazy variety of input hardware (pen tablets and chorded keyboards), etc, etc.
> Autodesk begat an entire ecosystem from scratch. Dealer channels, third party add-ons and utilities, conferences, magazines, curriculum, consultants, custom graphics cards (and drivers), huge CRTS, crazy variety of input hardware (pen tablets and chorded keyboards), etc, etc.
Yes. When AutoCAD came out, personal computers were expensive, exotic, fragile devices. Especially when they needed a big graphics-capable CRT, a mouse, a pen input tablet, and a large pen plotter. Dealers had to be set up to sell and service all that gear. An architect whose update device had previously been a powered eraser and a blueprint machine needed some handholding to computerize with confidence. Customers needed someone local they could call when it broke. Much of early Autodesk involved setting up that infrastructure.
I never had direct contact with John Walker. Outside of family and friends, the Autodesk founders probably had the biggest impact on my life.
In 11th grade, I submitted a grant application on behalf of my school. I wanted to draw molecules. My teacher (for our voc tech program) gave me the blank paperwork and said "go for it".
Some time later, two NEC APC III showed up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APC_series#APC_III Running AutoCAD. On 8" floppy media. The manuals were in 3-ring binders. Hot damn, I loved those computers. So much better than the more common IBM PC-XT. I'd take portions of the manuals home over night to study.
One of the upgrades featured AutoLISP. Version 2.17b? That really lit my fire. Like LOGO turtle on steroids or something.
I eventually published some shareware using AutoCAD/AutoLISP. Pretty good money for a kid.
AutoCAD, AutoShade, AutoSOLID, AutoFlix (Animator), HP plotters (using drafting pens and inks), transition from sneaker-net to LANs... Truly mind blowing stuff. Democratizing all that high-end workstation stuff (eg Apollo) for us normies.
Autodesk begat an entire ecosystem from scratch. Dealer channels, third party add-ons and utilities, conferences, magazines, curriculum, consultants, custom graphics cards (and drivers), huge CRTs, crazy variety of input hardware (pen tablets and chorded keyboards), etc, etc.
Helluva an achievement.
Thanks John Walker. RIP.