Freeware/ shareware CAD

Turbocad Learning Edition. You'll need to Google for it.
 
Not to thread hijack, but I need to find a cad type program just to draw up simple drawn to scale lot placements to present to the zoning department for building permits. They want me to use a full AutoCad program which is bigtime overkill. Pricing isn't that important, but simplicity is....any suggestions?
 
Not really. I wish someone would write such a program, but it seems that as computer resources grew, so did CAD programs. The only thing that I miss about Apple's MacIntosh SE is Claris MacDraw. At least with it you could draw a damned box without it having to be to a .001" tolerance. All these new ones are so complex that it takes forever to layout a simple plywood cut sheet. By the time I figure out how to half-ass work them, I could have drawn the plan on notebook paper. The free version of TurboCAD is the easiest one I have found, and it leaves much to be desired.

End rant?

Maybe, maybe not.
 
For the OP, sorry, I do not.
For Major, for that, just use Visio if you got it. If not, you can probably find an old version of AtuoCAD on ebay for cheap, anything from R13 up is cherry, even if it's LT. LT just means it doesn't support 3D.
 
We have the full blown version of AutoCad, but like I said, it's like using a howitzer to kill mosquitos. They wanted me to look at this program, which is basically a dumbed down set of drawing tools from AutoCad that can be used for my purposes and it only runs about $130...and doesn't have 16 CD's to load which is a plus since this will be going on my personal laptop :eek:
 
I own a licensed copy of AutoSketch 7.0, but I took it off of my machine. It is almost as aggravating as the full AutoCAD. They did make an AutoCAD LE at one time, but it was almost the same. The people at AutoDesk don't impress me, either. When XP was released, they informed me by e-mail that 7.0 wouldn't work with it. They lied because they wanted to extort another $50, or so, out of me. It works fine in XP. I just don't like it, and consider it to be money down a rat hole.

I told you the rant might not be over, didn't I? ;)
 
you can draw squares in mspaint pretty good, add text and you're good to go. :p

You could try that TurboCAD, or just about any $30 CAD program they sell at Fry's or Best Buy.
 
The nice thing about the old Macdraw was that you could draw easily like in mspaint, but you could do a few lite CAD sorts of things, like dimension, group, etc. Compared to the modern CAD programs, it was a toy however. Imagine a 4' X 8' piece of plywood, and that you want to optimize the cuts on it to make a house for your dog. You could do it in MacDraw in five minutes, but in the current CAD offerings, you would need to screw around with it for hours. That same problem translates to any simple plan or layout, not to mention the useless bloat. While it isn't useless bloat to an engineer who relies on sophisticated CAD programs for his livelihood, it is a nuisance for those who have less lofty goals. We need something to do simple, straightforward layouts and plans. Even the $30 ones have more features than the casual user will ever need. Those extra features become clutter when all you need is a simple plan fast. Redmond likes to add features, so mspaint would be a good one to soup up a bit. Three or four new features, and paint would do the trick for most of us weekend contractors out here. Maybe if they borrowed all the features of MacDraw, Apple wouldn't sue them. :D
 
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