The history of ViaCad from what I can tell. (long)
I thought with the advent of this new forum for Viacad, I would put together what I know about the background of it with hopes of hearing more from others who may have information. While some tend to require the "Brand Name" products in order to survive, I've found that quite often, the lesser known, and more often than not, less expensive programs actually have MORE technology in them than those rigid old, slow to change brand names. Viacad is one of those less expensive programs that carries quite a big bang.
Back somewhere around the mid '90's, I worked for a company where we would use Autocad LT. Having the need for another program and comparing functionality available at that time, we gave Ashlar a shot and were pleasantly surprised. In fact so surprised, that it became our go to program because frankly, they had function that was far and beyond anyone else. If you wanted to take twice as long to draw something, we would use Autocad,,,,
Being the poor shlub I was at the time (well, still am actually), I could not afford Ashlar programs for myself as I became interested in building CNC machines. So, I had toyed with as many freebie programs (very few existed), and low budget programs with utter frustration, especially after using Ashlar. I found an advertisement in a magazine for a new product called Ashlar Drawing Board. Ashlar decided to release a 2d version that supposedly had a few things cut back in it, but still with all of the fantastic drawing tools I was familiar with for $150. I was in heaven (while at home)! It was lite, quick, comfortable to use and had great DXF translating capability to get it in and out of Cam programs.
Drawing board was an old 16 bit program as they all were back then, limited to 9 digit file names also as they all were then. But they had drawing technologies that were light years ahead of the competition. Its really only the last 5 years that we have seen companies begin to apply "smart guidelines", something Ashlar had 20 years ago. How you draw without them is any ones guess if you ask me, and even now, so many companies do not employ such great tools. And I also remember how they had a very minimal tool bar.... only a few buttons were necessary because most of the tools were completely multifunctional tools when used with defined keys. One trim tool could extend, trim corner or trim to a line rather than have 3 buttons with 3 tools. This way, you could perform all sorts of trim operations without ever having to grab a different tool.
Well, obviously, Drawing board was just a "leader"... attempting to lead people to Ashlars more expensive and relatively new 3d offerings. Interestingly, Drawing Board ran on windows OS all the way from Win 3.1 thru to Win7 as I have had it installed on all of them over the years. I should see what Win 8 does with it... I just didn't bother because NOTHING else older I have tried does......
So, time when on, the 32 bit world opened many doors and I had to hunt for something new again, to which I got hooked on another cheap program, Autosketch. Truth be told for what I had to draw, Autosketch was TONS better and faster to use than Autocad LT, and also had things in it that LT did not. WHY, I never understood, but it did allow me to realize that you can spend lots and lots of money and not get more than the less expensive offerings. So, Sketch became my new friend.
Time came again when I wanted to have a look around and see what real value was out there. By now, I have bought into Bobcad a few times, VectorCad/Cam, Casmate, Signlab, Rhino, Moi, Alibre, VCarve, Aspire..... sheez, theres more....
But I found another little article somewhere about Viacad's underlying development had been LEASED BY ASHLAR all these years.... Well, there was no waiting time before I bought Viacad to have a look and I was happy to find that much of what I had become familiar with so many years ago was indeed inside this program. And all for a budget price !
So, now we have this fellow named Tim Olson as the man behind this development. I'm not sure if he was behind it all along, or how "punch" came along or how and or why Borderbund is connected. I do know that I sent an email to him directly once and got a reply from him. I have my share of questions and observations...
Is this a one man show ?
Who is the development team ?
Why is the OE forum locked down from public browsing ? More would perhaps be interested if they could SEE the discussions.
Why have so many variables to tend to which makes development more haphazard ? (This version, that version, the pro version, a window dressing version, etc.)
Finally, can we get v9 to run on my Windows 8 piece of crap PC so I can BUY the next version ?
(I've got v6 on one PC, v7 on another, Pro on another, 8 on another.... I just want v9 to run on my newest laptop so I can retire some of these old ones !)
Its a nice little program for what I do with it. Well, WELL worth the money.... heck, worth more than a lot of other programs I've bought into over the years.
Anyone else know anything about this lesser known Gem ?