Life before the invention of AutoCAD, 1950-1980

I took a drafting class in middle school- around '83-85. Like, actual physical pencil on paper, with t-square and everything. It wasn't that bad but it was tedious. At the end of the class I noticed a PC (heavy clunkers in those days) in the back of the room and asked the teacher. The teacher offered that I could make an elective course and learn AutoCAD on the machines (which were running DOS). Didn't take long to master, and today I still use those skills in Fusion 360. CAD was an absolutely tremendous tool.

> The major disadvantage of a paper-based design was that you could not change the drawing after it was committed to paper. This would mean that if changes were required to the design, the engineers would need to create the sketches all over again.

This is of course wrong. Nobody used paper, everybody used proper drafting tables and (double matt) drafting film on which you could easily fix mistakes by scratching it away with a razor blade.

https://www.archisoup.com/best-drafting-and-drawing-tables

https://www.karenhullart.com/Information-on-Drafting-Film.ph...