Bobbi, I've been using Cadd since Autocad Release 1 first came into the studio environment and a bit before.........back when a terminal (Techtronic) was about as big as a refrigerator and the interface was anything but user friendly.........no little icon to click on, just commands that you typed in and then picked your points........the terminals were attached to the mainframe, a big beast with hard disk platters that had to be kept in a temperature controlled room by itself.......back then we used it mainly for model building............but to be honest, I miss the old hand drawings.......a good one was a work of art. I worked on a project back in the 80's for Duke University. we had to go back to the original drawings and they took us in the archive room........these things were the drawings that they built the original campus from..........all hand inked on linen, they were pure works of art..........matter of fact we took some of the detail sheets, had them blown up (4'x8' and put on canvas in sepia tones and we hung them as art work in the new lobby........

I really feel sorry for the recent graduates from design school now, they can do cadd work but they have no understanding of the fine points of drawing by hand and it shows in their product.....sterile is the word to describe them..........where as drawings by hand had character to them. My first job in this profession, I sat next to an older guy who had been with the company since Noah built the ark. He had worked with the company through college and at the outbreak of WWII he, like many from Greenville, enlisted. He ended up as bomber pilot and watched his whole crew get shot out of the sky by German Messerschmidts, he survived and got his shot up bomber back to England and when he landed he had seaweed in his landing gear.....spent years in a VA hospital with a total mental breakdown. Anyways, he did special projects for the company.......would sit for a couple of days just staring at the taped down sheet with a cigarette and cup of coffee in his hands (back before smoking was outlawed in offices). Then he would put his cig out, set his coffee down, pick up his lead holder, sharpen a good point on it and start in the upper left hand corner of the sheet.........he worked diagonally down toward the title block in the lower right hand corner.....never used guidelines or construction lines, but as he progressed he produced a finished drawing as he made his way across and down the page........it was the oddest thing to watch.........he would have a half sheet done with walls, dimensions, notes, tags ,etc., etc.... and the unfinished half would be totally blank.......when he got down to the title block, he filled it out, signed his initials and pulled the sheet off the drafting table.......pure art work. Then he would start the next sheet......same procedure.

The founder of the company had it made a part of the contract when he sold the engineering / construction company to a larger outfit from California that this particular employee would have a job for life or until he retired......... he was a character. My first year, he never acknowledged me with a good morning or even an answer to a good morning. The day of my first anniversary with the company he walked in with a cig hanging out of his mouth and grunted...."morning, guess they're gonna keep ya..........". I have often thought of that old bird throughout the years and said a silent prayer for all the things he taught me ........ things you didn't learn from a book or from a computer. Thank you Phifer.......thank you.