FredFred wrote:
> I gottta 100% agree with you guys for this case an 99% Hence me saying that AS9 on XP is a good solution. In general. Also I did not know that 2.1 was THAT old (15 - 20 years) .
>
> The other 1% (not applicable in this case) is as much as MS would like to pretend and maneuver otherwise, the main job of an OS is to run programs, and any OS should be able to run programs that ran on it's predecessor that it is trying to substitute itself for.
>
> Also more features/power is not always a plus. (e.g. AutoCAD / AutoCAD lite vs AutoSketch) Often those higher powered products would be inferior with respect to a company's objectives. For example, with respects to costs to buy, costs to own (learning curve etc.) and how widespread it's use can be amongst persons in a company.
FredFred,
It's known that a program written for use with an early operating
system is not *necessarily* compatible with a newer OS. The issue with
2.1 has arisen many times over the years (at least since 1995 when I
first started with ADSK).
2.1 was a rather basic CAD system (lots of folks liked it) but it was
replaced around that time with a program that ADSK purchased from
DrafixCAD to work with W95 I presume, probably so that they wouldn't
have to entirely re-write the code for the newer operating system, and
low-end users would continue to use ADSK products and eventually
upgrade to the more expensive fancier ones.
As for your comment about backward compatibility, would you believe
that ADSK - in their infinite wisdom - created an upgraded (!) version
of AutoSketch (AS7 I think) that created skf files that could not be
opened by AS6? You don't? Neither do I. But they did. Honest. I
believe you had to twirl around in your chair three times, invoke
Vulcan (patron saint of caddies), save it as a pdf and take your
mother-in-law out to dinner to get it to work. I forget the details
but people were quite non-plussed about it at the time. Personally I
was pissed.
In any event, that's a little history from my perspective. Should Ric
or Paul note this, they can add their own experiences. Many of the
earlier proponents of AS have migrated away from this program (some
may remember Hakon Alm or Len, or even Ric ... or me) to AutoCAD or LT
or others. Yes they're more expensive, but as I mentioned there are
free ones on the net that are quite good. You can search this forum to
get the names. ProgCAD, IntelliCAD, something like that.
HarveyHarvey