My first contact with Archicad was on a mezzanine Macintosh equipped floor of my university computer room. I think it was Archicad 4.1. Through some basic help from my co-students and the intuitive tools lineup I soon started to use it on a regular basis for various lessons and seminars.

I was an Architecture student in our neighbouring country. Through some unexpected events I had to start earning money in my home country and I was only going to the University for exams and some more difficult seminars, so I had to do most of my student assignments at home. As you can see in the picture, it was Archicad 4.5 (education version) which made it possible. It wasn't free, it was quite expensive back then, but it was the tool of my choice and after all these years it still is, although I wasn't always happy with what a new version had to offer.

After all these years and versions Archicad still offers that intuitive feeling for the average user, but underneath it's skin it has a vast BIM enabled ecosystem ready for the more advanced users out there. I was slowly, version by version, learning about this new BIM reality, but it was the BIM Manager program Graphisoft placed online in Covid times which helped me master this new world.