I am using a 12 year old computer... seems to have plenty of computing power for the web and regular documents, etc. But when I was working, we needed HUGE computers for the CAD stuff - just to open and manipulate drawings - compared to the regular "office" sized computers. Currently I have 680 Gb computer memory of which around 100 Gb used. (My brain is tiny by comparison!). I can't find processor speed or don't know how.... or other parameters that will need to be checked. (My chalk and slate is still working in the Garage, without any battery charging. The slide rules all work well, my vernier callipers are still in calibration and my micrometers are battery free... picture of chalk and slate in conjunction with a steel rule attached! - it is in weekly use.). My only powered design tool is a calculator - from the 1980s. I've not worn it out yet and only changed the solar rechargable battery once... I never learned to do my design calculations on computers, as they were only huge company mainframe things when I was a design engineer - programmed by specialist programmers who typed punched cards with their programmes! Very "1970s film" stuff with huge cabinets with whirling spools of tape and green text computer screens.
What size computer are you on Richard? - is it big enough for Solid Works? - I should get something so I can import drawing plans etc. For my own stuff I happily use a tee-square and board with pencil, pen & paper. Roll-on the revolution? And when I have done any calculations I know what they mean - not just a number produced by a computer... from any rubbish or random numbers that are input...
NOW: Posty has just called: I received today a copy of "Experimental Flash Steam" by Benson and Rayman. - To quote Richard (above). I have not opened it yet - must go "shopping" with the boss. So I'll let you know what's what when I have read it.
Cheers boys!
Ken
I've got a couple computers much older than that which still work, but I have to protect them from my children. If the computers get in the way, the kidz will chuck them (not in the lathe chuch either). The tower computer is in a difficult to get at place but I only use it if I run into a problem like the "Inventor" problem. I don't know what it's computing parameters are without looking, and that is difficult to do.
I have a laptop that the little wifey bought me when my last one went tits up in November of last year (it must have been that infernal election that did it in) which I am using this very moment. It's a Lenovo as I insist that HP and Dell are krap. I thimk the best one I ever owned was a Samsung but for some ridiculous reason Samsungs are impossible to find here now--maybe because they are TOO good and the corporations don't want any competition around that lasts more than 18 months--planned obsolescence. Anyway, this is 2.11 GHz with 8GB memory. The one thing I do not like about this is the small SSD hard drive of only 237GB. I have to have external hard drive hookt up.
Yes this is powerful enough to run SolidWorks and some other powerful programs all at the same time. I started out computer programming with punch cards--what a tough way to do programming. My first computer was a Radio Shack TRS80 which had a very small memory, ran at a phenomenal speed of 4 MHz! The permanent memory was a tape recorder. I bought two disk drives eventually which held 40 KBytes of memory each and cost 500$ each. In the end the system cost 5000$ which in today's $$ would be somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000$. I sent the thing to the trash about 20 years ago. NOW it is a collectors item LOL. Actually the best computer I ever owned and still own it 30 years later is (and it still works) the Amiga 500. It was better constructed at the time than any other computer and it ran circles around it's competition for about 8 years. They went out of business because of bad marketing strategy.
If you enjoy drawing by pencil, that in itself is reason to do it. But it is not really productive if you are in business or a hurry. I can push a pencil and I DO enjoy it but I have too many irons sitting next to the fire because the fire is full of irons which I have to do something with so I never use the pencil method. Then of course the storage problem is much reduced with computers--no need for storage cabinet and the ability to find your files is much easier (be sure to have your files in at least TWO media storage drives--they still crash sometimes). Using 3D drafting, oddly, is actually EASIER than 2D! I would not have believed it lest I had danced on the keyboard with my own fingertips doing it. And one of the more difficult dwgs to do is the cross-section which you really have to have your ducks in a row on a ball with a thimking cap and a hot cup o'java with half & half and honey. But with 3D, a cross-section is just as easy as the original 3D dwg. Also, to make 2Ds for printing is extremely easy. So if you want some speed, get a 3D program. If you are in no hurry, I have two drafting tables for sale--one is a s small one about 3'X4' on a stand with an arm, and the other is a huge one, very heavy with an arm bout 4'X 8'. Which one do you want?(LOL)
, I'm a major shareholder in one of these firms who sees to be winnng and again, another one which seems to be on the right track.
