From: J024330@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM
Subject: Re: ADVICE wanted on Autocad hardware systems
Organization: Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 22:20:54 GMT

mech413@csc.canterbury.ac.nz writes:

>Hi,
>
>I was recently enquiring at the only Autocad shop in the city about
>setting up an autocad system. The prices they were quoting for the hardware
>seemed extremely high. The reason, they told me, for this was that autocad
>required special highspeed mother boards from the US in order to run
>correctly. They also mentioned special graphics cards required by autocad
>to run. I compared the prices for hardware they quoted and discovered that
>I can purchase a similar spec 486 with graphics systems for about a third
>of the price that they wanted.
>
>stuff deleted
>
>******************************************************************************
> Tim Pierre                        *   "Reality is such a difficult          *
> University of Canterbury          *                 concept"                *
> Mechanical Engineering Dept.      *                                         *
> Christchurch                      *  EMAIL ADDRESS:                         *
> New Zealand                       *        MECH413@csc.canterbury.ac.nz     *
>******************************************************************************


In the US we do not require hardware locks on ACAD.  Releases to the inter-
national market may (according to some articles in CADANCE magazine).  If
this is the case, there may be incompatibilities with the hardware lock.
Other than that, I'm running ACAD on an EVEREX 386 step 20  (20mhz 386
with coprocessor) using a Diamond Speed Star vga card (although EGA works
fine), 8meg RAM (4 works ok), 40 meg MFM hd and microsoft mouse.  There
are things you can do to speed up ACAD like extra ram on your VGA, faster
ram chips in the cpu (60ns vs. 100ns.) or use OS/2 to take advantage of
the 32 bit operating system for a DX type machine.  My office also has run
and is currently running ACAD v10 on a 286, 8mg ram, EGA with DOS 3.3. It
is a lot slower than the 386, but beats the heck out of a pencil and ruler.

Why pay your reseller a higher price?  Autodesk's support is different than
most.  They will refer you back to the reseller if you need help.  If your
reseller goes out of business, you become an orphan user which means you
will be hard pressed to find another reseller who will be willing to give you
the support you need.  I have that problem here.  My company owns several
ACAD licenses, obtained from different vendors, and we've had to be very
resourceful when it comes to getting technical support.  Since I have yet
to deal with support from a reseller, I don't know what the policy is, whether
it is unlimited help for the current release, or if you get a certain amount
of time like minutes or a cut off date.  If you are thinking of ACAD, you
may want to pay a little extra for the system because if your reseller
can't pay his bills, and goes belly up, you may become an orphan user, but
that's a decision you have to make.

Chris

Xref: sparky alt.cad.autocad:1005 alt.cad:290 alt.3d:758 alt.graphics:306 comp.graphics:8027