Ned Ludd? Is that you?
I worked for a surveying firm in the early 1990s, just about the time that CAD was starting to really become a practical alternative to manual drafting. And my immediate supervisor refused to hear anything of it.

For those of you who've never tried it: drawing a map the old fashioned way involves using a sheet of matte polyester film- mylar, to be precise- and using rulers and protractors to draw the shape first on a sheet of paper, then tracing it onto the mylar in ink. Any lettering is either done by careful printing by hand or by use of templates. Basically, it's very labor intensive and requires a very specific set of skills, as well as a lot of specialized equipment. And calculations were done with a separate coordinate geometry program with no graphics- just text.

So along comes AutoCAD, which can import info straight from the coordinate geometry package, and can automatically label the lines with bearings and distances in a nice neat font that looks like the templates we use! And if you need to change something, a few clicks will do it- then you just plot it again and you're done! I see a hell of a lot of time savings in this and during my lunch hour generate an entire map in about half the time it takes to do it by hand, and twenty minutes later I have the hard copy in my hand. How cool is that? So I take it to my supervisor.

"Hmmmph. Well, it's all right I guess... but we've been drawing maps for thirty years now by hand, and it works just fine for us."

Yah. That's really fucking sensible of you, Mike. Hey, how about a few suggestions then? You know how we keep having our survey vehicles break down and have to pay lots to get them fixed? Let's do away with them and send our crews out on horseback! And hey, that expensive and fragile EDM we use with the mirrors to measure distance? The one that keeps running out of battery at critical moments? Throw that shit away! We have steel tapes- or even better, get an old Gunter's chain! Hell, they surveyed with those for centuries and it worked just fine, didn't it? If it worked for George Washington, why should we want something different?

This was not well received.

I think they're using AutoCAD now, finally. I wonder if Mike is still bitching about it.

Fuckwit.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 24 Jan 2008, 20:16, 3 replies)

That type gets everywhere...
I worked with one. This was an Accounts department, pre computer days. We all had those big adding machines with a paper "till roll" print out. Ours were electric. One guy had held on to the old manual type with a big handle on the side, which had to be wound both ways (forward then back or vice versa, can't quite remember). Mind you, he could get up to a fair old speed on that thing! If he's not dead by now, he's probably still using it to balance his cheque book 'cos when he retired he took it with him.
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Thu 24 Jan 2008, 20:55, closed)

a guy
a guy I used to work with, when the time came to retire his drawing board, simply tilted the thing flat and put his PC on the drawing board.

He preferred to work standing up, which you can of course do with a drawing board.

Our boards were these beautiful cast iron framed jobs, with scroll-work on the legs, real works of victorian art - all went to the dump. They wouldn't let me have one.

What made me feel old this week is our new graduate starter - 'oh, I've never used autocad, that's old, I only know Inventor' (Inventor is the 3D replacement for autocad)
(inflateable, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 21:09, closed)

hee hee
hee hee
As a former chain man I found this pretty funny, one of our guys always used to bitch about how surveying was more pure in the old days.

I'm gonna add a funny little story about him for the hell of it. He had the pleasure of serving as an army surveyor during the Falklands, something he was always proud of and brought up whenever he could.

Until it came out that when he flew out and reported for duty, all psyched up and ready for action with his surveying gear, his commander asked him: "Where the hell is your kit soldier?"
He snidely started to explain the workings of his surveying gear, when the commander continued: "OK, fine... BUT WHERES YOUR FUCKING RIFLE!?"

Turns out he'd left it in blighty, and was stuck doing admin for the duration of his service.

Ha. Last laugh.
(Roopy all is not what it seams, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 1:32, closed)