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First Memories, AutoCAD version 2.5, and 3D Studio R4

I’ve been using ArchiCAD since 2006.
Over 7 years now… kind of surreal and surprising.

I first modeled in 3D on a computer back in 1994. I was 13 and my older brother acquired a copy of 3D Studio R4 for me. Best not to think too hard about that one. But even by then I was already quite familiar with 2D drafting. I first used AutoCAD in 1987 or 1988. I’m guessing it was version 2.5 or 2.6. MAYBE it was version 9. But I doubt it. Since I was only maybe 7 years old at the time, I wasn’t paying THAT much attention to the version. Either way, it was before my family had a computer with a mouse. In both programs I was way more focused on designing spaceships than noticing that I had access to more sophisticated software than most architecture offices at the time.

Quick question: think of your earliest memory of reading. Now think about your earliest memory of using a computer. Which came first?

I remember playing centipede and Styx on our first computer. That means I was about 5 1/2 and the year was 1986.

I must have had reading abilities before this memory-I was able to navigate a DOS based computer-but my first memory of when I KNOW I was reading is when I first officially read at school. I remember getting in trouble with Adam Carmon for not paying attention. We were already cocky and feeling too smart for our own good. I then focused and was a good boy… for the next couple decades. This was first grade, probably the fall. So I was 6 1/2, almost 7. That means 1987. Both these memories are vivid. I can tell you a lot about each instance. Who was there with the computer games, which friends were at the table with me when we were reading, what the layout of each room was…

I also remember when we got our first computer. I had spent the day playing outside in the mud with a friend. My mom and brothers picked me up in my parent’s 1983 Saab. The computer boxes (tower, monitor, keyboard, cables, and printer) were so huge that we had to have the back seats down. My brother Gabe and I sat in the back with the boxes, no seat belts.

I therefore fall in a unique place in history. There is only a brief space of time where people remember their first computer experience, and that memorable event occurred before they could read. For most people older than me, they might remember both, but the computer comes later. For people younger than me, computers appeared before memory**. Computers ALWAYS existed. As you engage with younger staff, think about what this means. They don’t remember a world before computers (and soon a world before the Internet or the ubiquity of wireless everything). How is that giving them a completely different perspective on life, specifically for our purposes the built environment and the tools of our trade? Oh and for perspective young means under 30.

What about you? Which do you remember first? Computers or Reading?  What and when was your first exposure to architectural software? How old were you?

Madeleine, Phaedra, and an iPad

**And for that matter, reading too. But that’s a whole different topic. My god, kids these days are learning to read so crazy young. Since the age of maybe 3, my oldest daughter Madeleine has loved to sit on my lap and practice her spelling and typing. Insane. And awesome that technology allows a child to learn how to spell and create words  before they are physically ready to hold a pencil well enough to write legibly. But we’ll talk about that again later.

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Comments

  • March 11, 2013
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    Shivang Rajvir

    I am 31 and I remember I learnt reading first and when I had decided to be an architect I saw 3D Home (a software) before Autocad R14 and I strongly remember the idea of 3D on computer amazed me far more strongly than the 2D drawings. This is the case even today.

  • March 12, 2013
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    OK – this will tell you that I was born in the Bronze Age.

    In the mid 1970s, I was on the development team for construction systems and OXYSYS BDS AND GDS (in the UK), the first BIM system developed explicitly for modeling and simulating hospital design and construction and also UK National Health real estate assets – sites, buildings, remaining life to failure etc for buildings components and systems. Object intelligence was at the core of everything we did. No layers, just “phases” that you could switch on or off just like you could objects of any shape or size. Quantity take-offs and cost estimates were automatic plus we had extensive structural engineering, MEP and energy evaluation capabilities. GDS also had a slick space planning and optimization system. GDS was used extensively for mapping and was used for doing all of the construction documents for Terminal 4 at London Heathrow (I remember pen-watching as the drawings came off the printer in Cambridge). When I worked at Perkins and Will, the firm adopted GDS by 1984 – a “four seat” Tektronix-workstation variant. It changed greatly how the firm did design work.

    Also, in 1981 I was part of the beta test team for AutoCAD 0.8 in the US! It was as dumb then as it was years later – just a 2D drafting program. GDS had spoiled me – much as it has for many years.

    MiniCAD was a nice application written by the folks at Diehl Graphsoft in Maryland. They were a very good crew and did some very smart things with their product. It was streets ahead of anything else on the affordable end of the spectrum back then. It had a very nice pascal-like programming language (minipascal) that enabled you to do some pretty smart things with objects, quantity takeoffs and other evaluations. It morphed to become Vectorworks.

    Its amazing that so many “CAD” products came on the scene in the mid to late 1980s. Most were – frustratingly – nothing more than 2D drafting systems with no alphanumeric database capabilities underpinning anything that was drawn.

    I’ve been using ArchiCAD since 2006 and Vectorworks before that…..

  • March 12, 2013
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    Shivang Rajvir

    i remember learning to read first and later on coming across computers. However, i must admit that my first encounter was also with 3D (3D Home) somewhere around 1997-98. I played a lot on that software as i was sure by then about being an architect and that was the only program our Computer Hardware supplier could provide for my aspiration. Later on came across Autocad R14. I must admit the idea of 2D using computers never amazed me, even today i feel hand drawing is much better than 2D CAD. But, if its BIM nothing can beat that.
    Came across ArchiCAD in JUNE 2004 and can’t imagine to work without it. The meeting (with ArchiCAD) was an outcome of my frustration with other software and a constant question “if every industry is using computers to make the work easier, why we architects draft 2D and make our work difficult”.

    Happy using ArchiCAD ever after.

  • March 13, 2013
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    stefkeb

    As I’m from the “Dark Side of the Moon” year, I learnt reading first. But my father taught Physics and started also teaching Informatics, so from time to time, he had a PC at home, for a few weeks. This of course was fascinating for me and my brothers.

    Funny enough, he initially chose to buy Apple II computers for his school, as they proved to have the widest educational software choice at the time. We then owned an Apple IIc, which was, believe it or not, meant to be “portable”, although it had a separate green/black monitor of an incredible low resolution. We used to play “Ultima IV, Quest of the Avatar” on it. We also used it for our text editing (when I was in scouting for letters and booklets) and primitive music editing (with no less then two simultaneous voices).

    Later on he switched to IBM-compatible PCs. I discovered AutoCAD 12 for DOS when I was in architecture school in 1994 and immediately was attached to the 3D possibilities (much more than the drafting).

  • March 16, 2013
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    Oregon trail….all text (circa 1983). Being excited having a access to a screaming fast 386 and walkig to the computer lab at NDSU through the (literally cow filled) barn with my program floppy and data floppy (5.25″) to type a a report, only to print it on the spoke wheeled dot matrix, peel off the perforated edges, separate the sheets and turn it in. on the way back to the dorm, I was glad I didnt register for computer programming because that stack of punch cards they used seemed ridiculous, even then (all 1987).

  • March 16, 2013
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    Oh….and ACAD on that 386: Redraw….Redraw…..Redraw……REGEN…..crap, NOOOOOOOO. I guess I’ll take a break.

  • April 27, 2015
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    First book I read was a book about airplanes, I still have it.
    First Computer game: Star trek, all ASCII text, on a terminal that printed on paper (1972). Connected to a mainframe via an Acoustic modem. (the type you put your phone headset on, and made strange sounds, remember those?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_%28text_game%29

    First CAD program…. Actualy, I am not sure. But I was marketing manager for a Norwegian ADESK reseller when they released 9. Su you are not old Jared…

    I am from the Viking age 🙂

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