AutoCAD 1.4 with RetroCAD

Retro AutoCAD is so very cool to see. Having personally over the years cultivated and documented a collection of historical Autodesk software, events, images, and memorabilia (Autodesk History Gallery), it was a pleasure to find someone else that shares this love of old design tools. It is amazing to see how far things have come and evolved or changed in the past 37’ish years and then thinking what it might look like 10-37 years from today.

I have a working AutoCAD 2.18 circa 1984 as well as disks for almost every reelase of AutoCAD 1.0 and up but I am unable to get anything older than 2.18 to run due to the limited old hardware that it required. Specifically the challenge has been the graphics card and in 2.18 there was a generic IBM display driver that allows me to use most any graphics emulation to run successfully. It took me a long time figuring out AutoCAD 2.18 would not run if installed on a hard drive larger than 10Mb, imagine that, 10Mb which is smaller than most thumb drives today given away for free was far too large for AutoCAD to think would exist as hardware. Recently I seen Robert of RetroCAD had a running AutoCAD 1.4 and had to ask him how he did it, and he told me – I was floored and impressed at the level he went to just to get AutoCAD 1.4 to run including building a retro working computer with a real legit IBM CGA graphics card.

RetroCAD: AutoCAD Version 1

“To run ACAD v1.4 I built a custom machine using the Next motherboard from Monotech. It is an XT-class machine with all the modern niceties such as a CF-card hard drive along with integrated video and controller cards. Although the built-in video supports CGA/EGA/VGA, AutoCAD 1.4 would not work correctly until I installed a for-real IBM CGA card.

The machine run really well and I have updated its case to be what they call a "reverse-sleeper", meaning that it looks like a modern machine but is all retro under the hood. My plan is to dedicate it to being a monochrome machine for ACAD 1 and 2. I am also putting together a tricked-out 386 for ACAD 9/10/11. “

The system specs are:

Monotech NUxt motherboard
640k RAM
NEC V20 4.77mHz/9mHz Processor
8087 Math Coprocessor
IBM Color Graphics (CGA)
5.25"/3.5" Floppy Drives
4gb CF Storage”

I hope to work with Robert to get a AutoCAD 1.0 or 1.1 (I have the floppies and recovered install files) to run and maybe Robert can help build me a Retro CAD station. I would also love to do a podcast or YouTube with him talking about the old AutoCAD versions. I wish he were attending Autodesk University next month and could bring his machine with him.

If you too like seeing blasts from the AutoCAD past, I would strongly recommend following Retro_CAD in Twitter and RetroCAD on YouTube.

Best,
Shaan