CAD on a Mac

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Does anyone know if Inventor will run under VirtualPC or is it just something that will not happen anytime anywhere? If it does work, how bad is it? See the thing is, we have a whole lab full of G4s available for our use right in our build space, so, it would be nice if we could Inventor on them.

Hey Sandrag! I believe that you are out of luck here. I tried to do the same with 3dsMax version 4 back in 2001, and I tweaked every setting I could on both sides of Virtual PC and the best I could get was that the program would open, but just wouldn't run. (That was under the old Mac OS 9 on a 333Mhz Blueberry iMac.)

You may have better options once the Mac converts to Intel chips, especially with the Wine and Darwine initiatives. But that's a few years off, so it doesn't help now. (BTW: did you ever score a co-processor?)

Originally Posted by Al Sierkiewicz

Sanddrag,
You have a lot of answers here, but I wanted to add a history lesson. Autocad was written for both platforms at one time. Autodesk stopped supporting the Mac platform because their customer base was moving towards PCs due to their ease of use on large networks, support for multiple monitors and other peripherals like graphics tablets and big plotters. Big businesses need standardization and although Apple did have some of this same support, it was not enough to attract the big customers. I think the last version was Release 9.

Al, this is a history of many Mac applications, and is certainly not restricted to CAD. But if you are suggesting that Sanddrag switch platforms to conform to what "big business" does, I disagree. First off, not everyone is going to work for a big business with a phlegmatic IT department, as you and I do. Most are going to work at smaller or mid-sized businesses, and they need to be adaptable to whatever that business uses. Today, businesses are using Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac, adaptability to more than one of these systems can seriously increase your chances of being employed. People need to learn how to "operate" the computer, not just press the keys and click the mouse -- a fact that almost everyone ignores as they focus on an OS battle that has long since ended.

In 1999, I was providing volunteer computer support to a local school, when a parent came up and lamented how he thought the school should change to PC's. He was worried that when his daughter entered the workforce, she would not be readily employable since she only knew how to use a Mac. His daughter was in fourth grade. I wanted to ask him, "So, if your daughter learns to drive in a Chevrolet, she'll never be able to drive a Toyota cause the buttons and knobs are in different positions?" I didn't press the SmartA** button that day, instead, I tried to explain to him that computer OS's of 1999 were not going to be anything like computer OS's when his daughter graduates from college. She will have to relearn as they change over the next 12 years. I wasn't successful in my explanation, so I shut up and let him enjoy his misery.

In my job, I still run computers using DOS and Windows 95 in my lab, and my main computer is running Win98 (not Second Edition). I occasionally use Unix and mainframe applications as well. I assist my boss with his Win2000 machine and other folks running XP. At home I use Mac OS X and OS 9 (mainly to still use Pagemaker). Oh, and my job has nothing to do with IT or IT Support, it's polymer research; my formal computer training consists of 1 FORTRAN programming class punching out cards to be fed into a mainframe.

Adaptability is the key folks. Your job will not be the same 10 years from now (when I retire), or 20 years or 30 years from now. The tools and systems you use will change, and you must be able to adapt along with them. That is the key to making yourself marketable over the long term.