ArchiCAD Flashback

[Anonymous]

Hey

I felt like talking about the "good" old days and would be interested to get some other story's, how it all started.

My first ArchCAD in the late 80ties was the 3.4 Version. Only 16 ( I think) layers which where numbered and you could not change. No curved walls, roofs, no polilynes, layout, not even plotmaker, no rendering, no stairmaker, I am sure there is more but can't remember.

I had a mac II ( I think ) 512 KB of RAM, 20 MB Harddrive, chip I think 16 MHZ, 21 inch screen black and white of course !

Costing if I rember correctly:

ArchiCAD 12000 Dollars
Computer 10000 Dollars
Screen 8000 Dollars
and if you after all this could aford a pen plotter another 29000 Dollars

So the workstation cost you: 59000 Dollars, can't belive today Architects where able to by this !

Cheers Carsten

ArchiCAD, 3D StudioMax, Vray
www.emdeimages.com.au

[Anonymous]

When I started on ArchiCAD 3.43 I was using a Mac IIx with the blazing fast 16MHz 68030 processor, a massive 4MB RAM and a huge 80MB HD! I got to bump this up to 5MB when a friend maxed out his machine at 8 megs and gave me his spare 256KB SIMMs. The list price for the computer was $7350US and the 13" VGA Apple color monitor was about $800. Naturally I jumped at the chance to get a 20" XGA screen when the price dropped from $6000 to $3000.

I remember the 16 layers in the 4x4 grid. My "layer combinations" in those days were Post-It notes each with the name ("ARCH plan" etc) and the grid configuration drawn by hand.

It did have PlotMaker and rendering via the venerable Internal Engine (are you sure those were lacking in your copy?) but it did not yet have the arrow tool. I think we had to wait until version 5 for that.

I think you are right about StairMaker. As I recall that came out around AC4 to 4.5 as a HyperCard stack.

[Anonymous]

Matthew

4MB of Ram AND 80 MB HD wow this was quite a high end machine for it's time ! Love your layer naming by post it notes, was great idea.

Yes you right I did have a PlotMaker, it's hard to recall all this after so many years lol

I do remember my boss one day proudly coming in with a 50MHZ card, let me tell you the "speed" suddenly was unbelievable.

Can anybody recall when the PC version came out? version 6.5 perhaps?

On another note, your prices where much cheaper, I was working in Switzerland at that time, you guys ripped us off ! lol

Cheers Carsten

ArchiCAD, 3D StudioMax, Vray
www.emdeimages.com.au

[Piotr Dobrowolski]

PC version came with 4.12 , and this was the first version I tried during studying time. The PC version at that time (on Win3.1) workarounded the DOS8.3 naming convention by having internal names. (I still might have the old lib parts with the internal/external names).

Best Regards,
Piotr

[Laszlo Nagy]

The first PC version was in 1993 I think. It was 4.12 or something like that.
I started using AC in 1995 when 4.5 was the current, soon replaced by 4.55.
But at that time I had a Pentium which was pretty awesome.

[Anonymous]

so 4.12 that's sooner then I can remember! What I can remember is that I was kind of disappointed at the time, because we had something on Apple which "they" could not by on a PC, lol. There was absolutely nothing on a PC even close to ArchiCAD's features and easy of use. But in the long run I new they had to do a PC version, otherwise they would not have survived. Funny enough now I am on a PC because of 3D Studio and vray....

Cheers Carsten

ArchiCAD, 3D StudioMax, Vray
www.emdeimages.com.au

[Anonymous]

My first contact with Archicad was v. 4.16 EDU some guy at university have used it. My first own experience was few months later with brand new v.4.55 EDU (2500 DM at the time). I had an old 386 without math coprocessor so I had to use software emulator run before windows 3.11. Believe you me it was SLOW. 800x600 256 greys 13" screen and dot matrix printer. Some of my teachers refused to accept my projects.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

I had a copy of the first commercial release of ArchiCAD. It was steam driven and came with two mules to turn the pump. It was expensive, but it came with a year's worth of oats.

The mules have retired now and work at a winery in the Okanagan. The chances of my joining them anytime soon are slim.

[Anonymous]

Aaron wrote:
I had a copy of the first commercial release of ArchiCAD. It was steam driven and came with two mules to turn the pump. It was expensive, but it came with a year's worth of oats.

The mules have retired now and work at a winery in the Okanagan. The chances of my joining them anytime soon are slim.

Luxury

When I started with Archicad it hadn't even been invented yet. We'd work 28 hours a day, and have to pay for the priveledge, then we'd get home and Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt...

[Anonymous]

But you try tell the young archicad users of today that it's fast and they won't believe you!