04/01/2025
Life Before the Invention of AutoCAD: Photos from 1950 to 1980
Prior to the introduction of AutoCAD and other drafting tools, engineering drawings were created on massive sheets of paper with drawing boards.
Many sorts of equipment were necessary to create a specific drawing, including a drawing board, various grade pencils, erasers, T-squares, set squares, and so on.
The main disadvantage of a paper-based design was the inability to modify the sketch once it had been committed to paper.
This means that if the design needs to be changed, the engineers will have to redo the sketches.
Examining the history of engineering drafting and design entails looking at the history of man, or the history of constructing things. Drafting and design have existed since the dawn of time.
The earliest recorded history of engineering drafting dates back to 2000 B.C., when we discovered a fossilized aerial view plan of a Babylonian fortress.
For the bulk of its existence, drafting was an art form perfected by expert designers and important to a culture's infrastructure.
The contemporary era of engineering drafting began in 1963, when a man named Ivan Sutherland built a small program called Sketchpad.
This was the first CAD program with a graphic interface that allowed users to make x-y plots.
This application was not used by engineers at the time on a daily basis, if at all, but it did kick off what is now a thriving computer-aided design sector centered on engineering. Engineers from Boeing, Ford, Citroen, MIT, and General Motors made significant intellectual and financial investments in CAD programs during the 1960s.
According to the companies concerned, CAD emerged as a solution to simplify automotive and aerospace designs. Because of the severe lack of processing power compared to today's standards, early CAD design necessitated extensive financial and engineering capabilities.
However, because to Moore's Law and the rapid evolution of electronics, CAD capabilities improved steadily over the next 50 years.
Despite the technical field's huge effort in the early 1980s, CAD software did not become proficient enough to be used in engineering design until the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Previously, drafting was arduous and time-consuming. And the photographs below prove it. Looking at them, you can practically hear the rustling paper.
Now, architecture designers, electrical engineers, and other drafters primarily use their mouse and keyboard.
In the midst of this rapid advancement, the engineering world witnessed the establishment of Autodesk.
