AutoCAD History Part II

As promised, the second installment of our exciting series. This will cover up to AutoCAD 2000i. For later releases and more on all releases check out the Unofficial AutoCAD History Pages for all the info!

Release 12   June 1992

AutoCAD Release 12 drawings are compatible with AutoCAD Release 11

This was a big deal. It was the first time AutoCAD kept file compatibility across version. They said it would be the last.

The AutoCAD main menu has been eliminated. After initial configuration, AutoCAD displays the graphics screen. The Main menu tasks have been replaced by commands. For example, the NEW command starts a new drawing, and the OPEN command opens an existing drawing.

Remember the Main Menu?

AutoCAD supports a cursor menu that contains Osnap overrides and point filters

First time for the Cursor menu, too

The new BHATCH command was added. Commands with the "DD" prefix bring up dialog boxes.

There were actually dozens of enhancements in this version the last DOS-only version

Release 13   November 1994

The AutoCAD interface consists of standard Windows user-interface components, similar to those used in other Windows applications. You can customize the size and placement of most components.

This release was available in only a DOS version, but a year later a Windows version was also released. Windows standards started creeping into the DOS version, too.

A floating toolbar is a collection of commands organized by category, for example. Flyouts allow you to choose several different commands from the same place on the toolbar.

It was necessary to educate AutoCAD users (and all users in general) to Windows terminology.

Purge at any time

Before this, you could only PURGE if you had not drawn anything during a drawing session - you had to end the drawing and re-open it.

Nonuniformly Scaled  Block, Drawing Preview, Multiline Text Editing,Spelling Checker, TrueType Font Support, Dimensioning Styles, Annotation, Leaders, Access to Properties

All new!

Release 14   November 1997

Paper Space Added

AutoSnap Added

Plot Preview Added

Realtime Zoom and Pan Added

Match Properties Added

First Windows version released

Template Drawings Added

Lots of good things in here

Release 2000   November 1999

Name predicted by yours truly

First Windows only version. DOS, Unix, Mac, Solaris versions dropped

Many new 3D commands added

Express Tools added

Layout tabs added

Ability to have more than one drawing open at a time!!!

Visual Basic support added

Release 2000i   July 2000

This release was rushed out to 'do internet stuff'. It cemented the old tale that one should 'never buy an odd numbered version of AutoCAD'

Comments

[joliver]

Nice summary of the AutoCAD history, Art! Although, admittedly I only go back as far as Release 12 (dating my young self??)
In my experience, Release 15 (AutoCAD 2000) was probably the single exception to the "odd number release" rule (if i may call it a rule). The layout tabs, MDI, and VB support alone were worth the upgrade. Having the VBA is handy. It's a nice quick and powerful alternative to LISP.
I'm up to the latest Release (21 or 2007) and, in my opinion, it lives up to the "odd number release "rule. If someone has not upgraded yet, I'd say spend the extra money and upgrade to 2008 later.