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The History of Generic CADD
as Seen by Lew Merrick

I have a rather skewed view of Generic CADD. I was a member of a "technology roundtable" that met at the Blue Moon tavern in Seattle, WA in the early-80's. The founder of Generic Software, E. O. "Sonny" Langstraad, was also a member of this roundtable. We met on Sunday mornings to drink beer, discuss technology, and share ideas as to the ways in which technology and business should be merged.

Early in the summer of 1982, I brought a CAD system that I had written for an S-100-based Z80 CP/M computer running a certain video card (Microangelo) to a meeting. Though very primitive in operation, it was the first personal computer (the term "PC" had yet to be coined) based CAD system that I am aware of and represented the extreme bleeding edge of "high tech". We all played with it and talked about the "someday" when CAD would be available for all. Sonny told me in 1986 that this is where the idea for Generic CADD really came from.

Not long after this meeting, I took a contract with NASA which caused me to leave the Seattle area for several years. When I returned to the area in late-84, I heard about a "local CAD company". However, at that time, I was working on an advanced manufacturing program and had no time to check it out. It was not until early-86 that I had the need to add a PC-based CAD system to my toolset. This is when I discovered what Sonny had down with the ideas that germinated at the Blue Moon tavern that Sunday morning.

Generic CADD 3 was the current product when I first faced the need for a personal CAD system. For those of you who don't remember, this was a modular system. You purchased the base module which gave you a limited set of CAD tools and added to this as you gained the need. Curve entities, dimensioning and text capabilities, printing and plotting, and fonts were among the "extras" you could add to this system. As nearly as I can recall, my first copy of Generic CADD with all the "extras" cost me something on the order of $800.

Shortly after I made this purchase, Generic CADD Level 3 was introduced as a "system" that merged all these "extras" in a seamless way. (The original Generic CADD 3 that I purchased was ANYTHING but "seamless"!) Generic Software had gained the business experience of Robert (Bob) Fulton to help them make this launch as an "integrated CAD system". It was very nearly a disaster.

Generic CADD Level 3 was launched into the face of a massive change in PC hardware. PC's had either RLL or MFM hard drives with limited (and standard) memory configurations. There were only CGA, EGA, or Hercules video cards. 9-pin dot matrix printers were all there was for "graphic output". This was the "way it was" in the days prior to Level 3's release. VGA and SVGA video cards, a number of "extended memory" schemes, IDE hard drives, and 24-pin printers came on the market at this time. Additionally, "terminate and stay resident" programming started to come into vogue at this time. The combination of all of these factors caused many problems with Generic CADD Level 3.

Financially, Generic Software really "took it in the shorts" with Level 3. Instead of blaming their problems on the new hardware that actually DID cause the majority of the problems with their new release, they decided to fix it all themselves. This was a costly process. Generic Software came within a couple thousand dollars of being bankrupt during this period. There were two outcomes of this effort:

    A) Generic CADD users became rabidly loyal. They had a software company that could and did stand up and say, "Yes, it is a real problem and we will fix it." No passing of the blame. They stood up and demonstrated that our problems were their problems.

    B) Sonny was scared to death of the future. He had mortgaged his house to the hilt (and the some) to pay the bills. He had to borrow money from all sorts of sources to keep things going during this period. When all was said and done, Sonny wanted out from under the liability he faced during the Level 3 release.

Bob Fulton ended up buying Sonny out and running Generic. He did all that he humanly could, but he was "stretched" and needed additional financial support to continue. He started looking for such a partner.

Generic 3DD was released during this "interim period" as was Generic CADD for the Mac. Generic CADD users increased in their "rabidity" to become the best sale's channel that Generic Software had. General purpose and specific trade journals started to take notice of the Generic CADD product line. The future was looking better than ever for Generic Software -- if Bob could find the financial relief he was looking for.

Autodesk entered the picture in 1988. They were convinced that Malcolm Davies had a vision of the Generic product line being a complementary support for AutoCAD. There are many who would deny this today, but I talked with Malcolm many times as he was looking at Generic Software for Autodesk. He really did think that Generic CADD represented a "niche" that AutoCAD would not and did not fit into. This was the view in his mind's eye as he took the helm at Generic Software.

Interim releases of Level 3 and 3DD were the first order of business under Malcom's reign. A DXF converter (AutoConvert) was added to the Generic CADD product line. Generic CADD for the Mac was improved in numerous ways. This foundation led to the development of Generic CADD 5. The return to the older numbering system confused many people, but the idea was that Level 3 really should have been Generic CADD 4.

Generic CADD 5 added many new features. Tracking, improved text and dimensioning, the ability to run macros (encrypted though they had to be) that used variables and accessed other data files, active zooms and pans that could be used while working other commands, and many customization features were brought to Generic CADD 5. AutoConvert also had many new features added to it at this time. Operational speed and printer/plotter output was vastly improved. The future could hardly look better.

Generic CADD 6 (usually referred to as "6.0" to differentiate it from the following "6.1" release) brought "viewports" (the ability to show various sections of a drawing on the screen at once) and opened macro programming to all comers (instead of requiring "encrypted" macros). (Generic CADD has had the ability to run "command macros" that aped direct keyboard entry of commands since CADD 3. It was the addition of variables and file access that I refer to here.) The 6.0 release also gave us the ability to read in AutoCAD DWG and DXF files directly and to write DXF files without the need of an external program to accomplish the translation (AutoConvert).

It is my opinion that the 6.0 release was Generic's death knell with Autodesk. In February of 1992, Generic CADD 6 won the "Best Buy" rating in PC Magazine's evaluation of CAD systems. I believe that this became the point where Autodesk's senior managers decided that Generic CADD was a "threat" to AutoCAD rather than a "support". Policies seen by personnel supporting Generic's product line started appearing shortly after this act to confirm this opinion.

With the successful release of Generic CADD 6.0, the people at Generic decided it was time to create a more aggressive version of 3DD aimed at the (then) emerging Windows market. This was Generic 3D Concepts. I was not involved in testing of this product, so much of what I say here is hearsay. Peter Acker, Matt Brown, and Carl Ransdell wrote a very powerful polygon- based 3D modeling system. They had gone through all the standard hoops during the development of this system. Reports were filed with Autodesk as the development continued. The product was demonstrated for Generic users at the conference held in Bothell (WA) in August of 1992. What we saw was truly an amazing 3D modeling program.

Now, on to the hearsay. The story I have been told is that a full "paste-up" of 3D Concepts was taken to senior management at Sausalito shortly after the user's conference. It was not until this point that Autodesk's senior management finally saw the actuality behind the reports that they had been reading for some months. The ease of use, power, and integration with 2D (Generic CADD 6.0) that they saw really "woke them up" in that the programmers (Peter, Matt, and Carl) had well and truly exceeded the 3D capabilities then available to AutoCAD users. This was the point where indifference to the Generic product line turned into active opposition.

Less than a month before the scheduled release of 3D Concepts, the programmers were ORDERED to remove functionalities, denature capabilities, and otherwise disable the product they had worked so hard to create. This was such an impossible task that they could NOT ship a utile version within the schedule allowed by Sausalito for this "task". 3D Concepts was shipped in an unusable and unstable form -- and was shortly removed from the market. This was the beginning of the end for the Generic product line.

The lead programmers gave notice to Autodesk (actually, Matt and Carl gave notice to Autodesk, Peter had only been a "contractor" and was under different agreements with Autodesk than Matt and Carl had been) and quit in November of 1992. This is the point where the code for Generic CADD became a "real problem" for Autodesk. The only people who REALLY understood it had gone.

Generic CADD 6.1 was released based on code that had existed for the 6.0 release. This added the capability to WRITE AutoCAD DWG files directly. (This capability, so I have been told, was REMOVED from 6.0 at the direction of senior Autodesk management who feared adding this level of "compliance" between the two products.) Without the original programers involved in this, it took several "releases" to get it to work correctly -- and there are a number of "problems" with it that have NEVER been corrected.

Generic 3D Version/Release 2 (the box says "Version" and the screen says "Release") was issued during this "interim". As I was one of the alpha and beta testers for this product, I have information (and personal blame to bear) that needs to be truly understood. For some reason, Autodesk Retail Products (nee Generic Software) decided that the addition of text and dimensions capabilities were THE most important things they could add to Generic 3DD. This was included to the detriment of geometric modeling capabilities.

Nobody was more surprised than I when 3DV2 (as we call it) was shipped in March of 1993. I had talked with the program manager about the bugs that existed in it and the lack of progress towards eliminating them that I was seeing less than a week before the product was shipped. In point of fact, I had a review (published in the April issue of "CADalyst" magazine) that I prepared that was a serious "pan" of the product. I revised my negative review based on assurances that the points I had raised about the functionality of 3DV2 in that meeting -- only to discover that they product shipped within a week of my having received those "assurances".

As a long-time Generic users, I felt it was my duty to bring a copy of my "review" as it sat at that point to the attention of the people at Autodesk Retail Products. Brian Smith, 3DV2 product manager, and Cary Fulbright, ARP manager, BOTH gave me their personal assurances that the issues I raised in my negative review would be addressed. Based on the history of my experiences with Generic, I took these assurances at face value and revised my review of 3DV2 into a "qualified approval". This is a mistake that haunts me to this day.

Point blank, Autodesk released Generic 3D Version 2 in a state that can ONLY be described as unusable. They did so with full knowledge of its condition. This is only "sensible" if this was done with the intent of ruining the reputation of the Generic product line. It is my personal opinion that this was the situation in the spring of 1993 at ARP.

August of 1993 is known to Generic CADD users as the "August Massacre" where Autodesk employees working on Generic products were given their notice. The euphemism that Autodesk used was "redeployed". Resources that were supposed to have been made available to ARP employees working on fixing CADD 6.1 and 3DV2 were suddenly "unavailable". Someone with a history of working on Generic products were suddenly "downgraded" in their employee evaluations (as related to me by several ARP employees at this time). Etc. This is the point where Generic products became "officially dead".

Autodesk quit manufacturing Generic CADD 6.1 in November of 1996. This has halted the availability of the last product in the Generic product line. The last people who were supposed to "support" Generic CADD were removed from that task in April of 1997. The Generic CADD story is now truly finished...