Home | About | Collections | Stories | Help! | News & Links | Friends | Lets Talk! | Events & Visiting | Search

DigiBarn Stories:
Mike Riddle & the Story of Interact, AutoCAD, EasyCAD, FastCAD & more

Mike Riddle, the father of AutoCAD and innovator of much of what the CAD industry is today, gave us a wonderful recounting of the roots, technology, business and personalities of the early microcomputer-based CAD world. Thanks Mike for a tour de force de CAD and for filling such an important piece of the history of computing! Know anything more about this subject, please contact us!

Listen to Mike telling the story of Interact, AutoCAD, EasyCAD, FastCAD and more


Mike Riddle on Interact, AutoCAD
and the early CAD
industry (35 MB MP3)

More Mike Riddle2
(2MB MP3)

More Mike Riddle3
(10MB MP3)

More Mike Riddle4
(11MB MP3)

Photos of Mike in action at his lab in Arizona

DSC01484.JPG
Mike Riddle
DSC01485.JPG
Running FastCAD/DOS, selecting a drawing
DSC01486.JPG
FastCAD running, showing the
Carson Mansion, Eureka CA, a classic
drawing from early AutoCAD
DSC01487.JPG
DSC01487.JPG
DSC01488.JPG
DSC01488.JPG
DSC01489.JPG
DSC01489.JPG
DSC01490.JPG
Stuart Gold and John Matson
along with DigiBarn Curator
Bruce Damer visiting
Mike in Arizona
DSC01491.JPG
FastCAD on a Compaq iPaq
drawing a circle
DSC01493.JPG
CAD on the iPaq, amazing!
DSC01494.JPG
DSC01494.JPG
DSC01495.JPG
The Carson Mansion again
DSC01497.JPG
DSC01497.JPG
DSC01498.JPG
DSC01498.JPG
DSC01499.JPG
Mike and his reality-meter, rendering
times in CAD separate the men from the boys
DSC01500.JPG
The reality-meter:
when theory meets reality
reality wins
!

More on this topic:

From Donna Rosebaugh

Just saw your webpage. Please be informed that the drawing of the "Carlsbad House" [curator's note: we had it misnamed as "Carlsbad House"] is not named correctly. This AutoCAD drawing is of the Carson Mansion, in Eureka, California. I was attending the AutoCAD course at College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California, at the time this drawing was made. I don't have the name of the young man who did the drawing, but he was terribly talented. The version of AutoCAD we were studying was approximately 2.1, R3, I believe. It was so long ago, I can't recall the exact year, or the version of CAD we were using. The instructor's name was Mr Voytek (sp). This AutoCAD drawing has been widely copied and used in many CAD magazines as well. I doubt the drafter was ever given his due, but he certainly should have been. He drew it in class, and it took him a long time.


Please see https://www.eurekaheritage.org/the_carson_mansion.htm. The addition on the right of the building is not in the CAD drawing.

Thank you. I hope you will correct your web page.
Donna Rosebaugh
Old CAD drafter, Eureka, CA. 95501

See Also:

WikiPedia's entry on AutoCAD

Autodesk, publisher of AutoCAD

Evolution Computing's FastCAD & EasyCAD

Prof Landon's History of AutoCAD

MD Design's History of CAD

 

Please send site comments to our Webmaster.
Please see our notices about the content of this site and its usage.
(cc) 1998- Digibarn Computer Museum, some rights reserved under this Creative Commons license.