General CADD Pro

General CADD Pro

General CADD Pro or GCP as users are calling it is a very powerful 2D computer assisted design & drafting program (32 bit accuracy) which embodies the features of generic CADD (CADD6), the very popular and well known DOS based CADD program which reportedly has over 350,000 users world wide. Many Generic CADD users are still maintaining an older DOS based computer just to run their favorite CADD program.

General CADD’s primary goal is to provide these users with a natural feeling and nearly painless upgrade path to Windows. The main focus of the GCP development team has been to recreate as closely as possible the 2 letter command structure, ease of learning and operation, but this time, in the MS Windows operating environment. GCD, DWG, DXF, CMP, MCR, FNT, VCD, VCS, SHX, PAT, PAT, HCH, and HAT file compatibility. Version 4.1.26 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

General CADD Pro was developed by some of the original programmers of Generic CADD,which was one of the most popular low-cost software for CAD in the 1980s. (CADD is short for “computer-aided design and drafting.”) At that time, there was also a Generic 3D program for three-dimensional design.

In 1989, Autodesk purchased Generic CADD, but then four years later abandoned the product when programmers could not convert the program, which was written in the Pascal programming language, from DOS to Windows. At the time, Generic CADD had 350,000 users.

In the mid-1990s, the original programmers received funding and created a company called Numera Software to prove Autodesk wrong. They wrote Visual CADD for Windows, a program that was compatible with Generic CADD. But not enough copies sold, and so the product bounced from owner to owner — from Numera to Corel to IMSI (makers of TurboCAD), and finally to TriTools, who continues to support and update VisualCADD.

The original programmers went it a second time, with the result being General CADD Pro. It is much more like Generic CADD than Visual CADD was. A trial version of the software can be downloaded free from http://www.generalcadd.com/#Program Downloads.

Our Inside Generic CADD 6 is a reprint of the popular Learn Generic CADD 6 in a Day book, originally published by WordWare Publishing in 1992. Thank you Noel Browning for suggesting this book project. Almost all commands and procedures in General CADD Pro are the same as Generic CADD. This book will nicely fill the learning gaps for  users who lost the Generic CADD manual — as well as taking  you down a trip along memory lane for what it was like in the days of running CAD on DOS.

Inside General CADD Pro is the e-book written for the first release of the program. This title is a tutorial and a reference:

    Starting General CADD for the first time
Setting up for a new drawing
Saving and backing up the drawing
Creating and editing the drawing
Adding text and dimensions
Plotting the drawing
Menu and command reference
Complete coverage of macro programming and General CADD customization
Translating drawings to and from AutoCAD

Thank you to these beta testers who contributed corrections and suggestions for improving the book: Guy Veasey, Bruce Lehrer, Jim Faliveno, Matt Brown, Noel Browning, Harry G. Petrohilos, and Milan Anthony Vlasak.

Features

• Dozens of tips and reference pages summarizing commands and concepts
• Illustrations in full color
• Formatted for printing on standard 8.5×11 paper
• Margins designed for three-hole punching
• Free subscription to the weekly upFront.eZine e-newsletter
• Shipped to you by email within 24  hours