Old Design cad

[gondor]

I'm new to the forum business guy's so be gentle with me!
I have a version of Design cad, purchased about 14yrs ago, Design cad 2D for windows, to be precise. A basic program I know, but I was completely computer illiterate (& have not advanced all that much since). The program suits me well I draw basic house plans & structural connection points and detail work that may be relevant to the plans. Then I'm generally involved in constructing my designs. I did purchase Design Cad pro 2000 2d/3d, but never put the time into self teaching how to used the program as I had with the original (so it sits on the shelf collecting dust), My question is guys, is Design Cad 2D by Via Grafix the same or similar to the Design Cad located at this web site & if it is, is it possible to upgrade my old Dinosaur as new computer programs don't appear to be all that compatible with ancient technology?
Gondor.

[Pearco]

gondor;

DesignCad is still the same program but has different ownership. The new versions will still do what you have been doing and much more. The purchase price is so low that you should buy the full 2d/3d version which is V19.1. You will find the program at the IMSI web site. I am on the wrong computer to be able to give you the link to their site. Someone will check in that has it.

[WarrenKinney01]

At this point, in my oppinion, if it's not broken, don't fix it with 19.1. This incarnation is still a work in progress. I bought my first DesignCAD in 1993 and have updated religiously. 19.1 needs work on many levels. After growing weary of the issues in 19.1, I went back two generations and am now using 17.2 daily. My business application is similar to how you describe your own. The 3-D features in the newer editions are very handy for sales.

Warren

[Bob P]

If you need something more recent to deal with later operating systems, you can get V17 on EBay, cheap.  Then you can use V17 as an upgrade path to the latest version if you wish.

[edwardj]

I started using DesignCad about, 20 years ago, when it first came out. I worked on beach homes back then. These homes had a lot of difference shapes to them. DC helped me figure all I needed to do. Through the years with the changing of new computers and difference operating systems I have upgraded DesignCad a few times. Yes, new versions have improvements, but they also have new problems. I now have ver. 18. Only upgraded from ver. 14, because I went from windows XP to windows Vista. If I still had my old computer, It stopped work, I would still be using the dinosaur version.

ED

[Dr PR]

gondor,

DesignCAD V15 is probably the most reliable version that has been released.

The later versions (18 on) have a lot of nice features for 3D modeling, particularly rendering with shadows. There are no significant new 2D features after V15 (with the possible exception of "paperspace" print formatting).

V18 and 19 are significantly different from earlier versions, and there are serious compatibility problems. The major change was to try to have dimensions that are AutoCRUD compatible. Unfortunately, the newer programs are no longer DesignCAD compatible.

[Mark Laing]

My vote is for buying version 17 and upgrading at will, although I would have said Amazon dot com.

[gondor]

Thanks guys.
 Yes it is basically the same program as I originally had, but with a few changes. I've bought version 17.1 and starting the learning process again.
Once again thanks for your assistance.

Gondor

[robotman]

I teach robotics for kids here in Montana.  To layout parts to build the robots we have obtained a copy of DesignCad 2D 5.0.  This program runs under the windows 98 platform and is executed in dos.  What we need is a copy of the users manual so we can use this program.  Your post indicates you have a windows 98 based version of DesignCad can you or someone else please send us a manual ?  Please use my email address to comunicate  profwalsh@hotmail.com.

[Dr PR]

romotman,

I Found the original DC 5.0 5 1/4" disks in our archives. The only machine we have with 5 1/4" drives is an old Windows 3.11 machine that hadn't been started in 10 years. Amazingly it ran, one of the drives worked, and the diskettes could still be read! Unfortunately, there is no users manual.

The network connection still worked so I copied the help files (attached). I think one is for some version of DC 2D. The DC3HELP file is for DesignCAD 3D V5.0.

Hope this helps.

[Rob S]

Now where else can you get this kind of help, loyalty, and support - I ask you?

[robotman]

Boy, you guys are great, thank you for all your help.

ROBOTMAN

[robhosailor]

Hi All,

I have original 5 1/4" floppy discs, protection LPT keys and completed printed manuals for (DOS programs by ASBC):
DesignCAD 2D ver. 6
DesignCAD 3D ver. 4
VinylCAD ver. 2

and printed manuals for VinylCAD 1.1

Is anybody interested in?
It's for free... but shipping is expensive I think...