History of CAD and AutoCAD

• Alphonse Louis Poitevin (1861) - a French Chemist that discovers a process involving sunlight and a substance found in gum that allows the original architectural plans/drawings to be accurately reproduced. The black lines turn white and the blank spaces turn blue, leaving users with a "blue print". This allows everyone to work the same design without any errors
• Alan Turing (1936) - british code breaker that invented the Turing Machine which becomes the basis food the modern computer
• Late 1940's to early 1950's - mainframe computing is introduced
• 1955 - transistors start replacing vacuum tubes
• 1961 - exponentially accelerating processing speed
• Dr. Patrick J. Hanratty - The Father Of CAD, joins general motors research laboraties and helps develop "DAC"
• Douglas T. Ross - named DAC, CAD
• 1971 - Dr. Patrick J. Hanratty introduces the CAD software known as Automated drafting and Machining or ADAM. 90% of today's commercial drafting roots back to ADAM
• 1977 - CATIA (Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application), the first 3d CAD system launches
• 1981 - release of IBM pc, desktop computing becomes affordable
• John Walker (1982) - founded AutoDesk and later introduces AutoCad
• AutoCad - the first significant CAD program for pc
• 1985 - 3d modelling is introduced
• 1992 - AutoCAD for Windows
• 1997 - Multiview text editor
• 2003 - tool palettes
• 2005 - dynamic block functioning
• 2006 - PDF File format for drawings
• 2007 - AutoDesk ships their 8th millionth copy of AutoCAD
• 2010 - advances continue to be made, including a web-based mobile version of AutoCAD and AutoDesk