Cadalyst - June 2008 - (Page 21)

25yearscadalyst as being ªan i ndependent organization without financial ties to the company whose customers we all are.º Unlike all of the name changes involved in the formation of Autodesk and its software, the name of Johnston' s magazine stuck from the very start: We'v e chosen CADalyst as the least preposterous of the names we came up with. I will never be a member of a group called `A UG' nor edi t a newsletter called AUGNews, so you'r e stuck with the bad pun. It' s not the last silliness you'l l have to read from this keyboard. began running his fledgling magazine full time. He traveled to Colorado to attend the First Annual Conference of Microcomputers in CAD (organized by Terry Wohlers at Colorado State University) and then spent a month in Mill Valley, California, ªget ting to know and be known by Autodesk better.º It was clear that CADalyst had evolved. It would no longer be a user group newsletter but rather an independent publication for AutoCAD users. PRODUCE. PERSUADE. PERFORM. ON PAPER. WITH CANON GENUINE TONER, PARTS AND SUPPLIES. The Growing Years Soon after, Johnston hired several people to help run the business. The first employee was Martha Holzchuher, who remained with CADalyst until it was sold in 1991. In the spring of 1985, Johnston hired Ralph Grabowski, a professional engineer and consultant, as technical editor. By now, the newsletter had become a real magazine, first changing shape to a 8.5º x 11º saddle-stitched blackand-white publication and then, with Volume 2, Number 3 (June/September 1985), to a glossy magazine with some pages in color. CADalyst continued to print its table of contents on the cover (like a nineteenth-century magazine; Johnston admits to not being much of a designer) until the end of 1986. The November/December 1986 issue included a story about how AutoCAD was used to design the King Kong attraction at Universal Studios, and if you look closely, you' ll see that the giant ape on the cover is eating the table of contents. Other early issues included stories about using AutoCAD to chart the wreckage of the HMS Pandora, design America' s Cup yachts, and create staging for Madonna' s 1986 ªV irginº tour. ªThe thing I loved,º said Johnston, ªw as the opportunity to show to all the various professions how some other professions were using it.º While Johnston' s aim had been to create an international user group, other local AutoCAD user groups were springing up all around the world. I helped form such a group in Memphis, Tennessee, in May 1985 and subsequently began publishing its user group newsletter. That newsletter also grew, and rather than see it compete with CAD- The original plan was to publish ªthi s little newsletterº ev ery two months. The newsletter would include contact information for members, maintain a wish list for software improvements, pose technical questions, circulate rumors and gossip, provide a letter-to-the-editor column for users to sound off, run classified ads, accept advertising, offer tips about hardware and software, provide libraries of drawing symbols, and so on. He concluded that first mailing by saying: Well, I'm at my page limit, and my wee daughter is tugging at my elbow. For more of this deathless prose on your doormat, take 5 minutes to fill in the form below and send it in. When we count your replies up here in our mountain retreat in British Columbia, we'l l estimate our costs and decide how to ask you for a moderate subscription and membership. It'l l be maybe $10 per year. Let us know your wishes Ð thi s is your newsletter. Issue Number 2, published in April 1984, was an actual newsletter. Although still printed on 8.5º x 11º paper folded in half, it was 16 pages in length and contained some truly useful information, including the first published AutoCAD wish list and several tips published under the heading ªH ot Tip Harry.º Johns ton reported, ªA s this issue goes to press, almost 200 of you have expressed your interest in CADalyst.º The annual subscription price was set at $25. A few months later, in the summer of 1984, Johnston and his wife, Jane, moved to Vancouver, where Jane had taken a new teaching position. Johnston stopped being a dealer and June 2008 cadalyst www.cadalyst.com www.usa.canon.com 1-800-OK-CANON Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. in the United States and may also be a registered trademark or trademark in other countries. IMAGEANYWARE is a trademark of Canon. © 2007 Canon U.S.A., Inc. All rights reserved. 21 http://www.usa.canon.com http://www.usa.canon.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - June 2008

Cadalyst - June 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Tech Trends: Community Building in Progress A Quarter Century of Cadalyst Tracking a CAD Giant The Highs and Lows of CAD Hardware Industry Insights — Looking Ahead Cadalyst Lab Reviews: HP xw4600 Workstation with LP3065 30” LCD Monitor NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 — Graphics Card LaCie 324 — LCD Monitor CAD Manager: Making Standards Stick MCAD Modeling: Rational vs. Irrational Decisions AEC Insight: Data Collection in AEC CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry: Just a Few CAD Renovations

Cadalyst - June 2008

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