This is turning into the quintessentially sticky thread, because every time somebody posts I seem to make a connection that spawns more memories. I know the general type of CAD system you mean, and when you mention Autodesk, I remember the year I worked for them (1990) under contract, writing the AutoSketch 3 manuals. Fascinating place, by the way, prided itself on its intellectualism and creativity, and possessed a rich culture.
And then there's slide rules. A sure sign of a technology that's ripe for replacement is baroque specialization. By 1970 there was a slide rule for every purpose, and in electronics we used several, usually the circular variety, to make calculations in different domains. Radio engineers had circular sliderules with scales for wavelength and power, audio engineers dealt in decibels and RMS...of course, I don't recall having much use for slide rules when I started working with digital--that was a fundamental discontinuity in technology right there. I would say that with the rise of digital we had to develop new tools in parallel. The scaffolding is perpetually only slightly ahead of the building.
I have to trump you: My washing-machine size disk drives were marvels of their time with a capacity of a jaw-dropping 20 megabytes. They were top-loaders, and the disks were multiple platters ganged into a "discpak". Kinda scary sometimes, too. The platters were relatively massive slabs of aluminum spinning at ridiculously high speeds and thus embodying a dangerous amount of potential energy. When those things broke, they tended to break spectacularly.
The heads rode a carriage the size of a toy train locomotive and rolled in and out on little wheels propelled by a thermos-sized magnetic coil and a ten-pound magnet that'd kill your watch. The read/write sensors themselves were quarter-sized ceramic discs glued to the end of thin strips of spring steel about 8 inches long, to reach as far as the hub of the spinning disk. They road air cushions and were held down to within a few ten-thousandths of an inch against the disk by backing springs. And therein lay the danger: You could, and I routinely did, get the backing springs tangled together in such a way as to cross the space that normally remains open into which the platter fits between the heads. I'd replace a set of heads, power up the drive, and when the internal controller sensed that the platters were up to speed--i.e. storing a kiloton or so of rotational energy--it would energize the electromagnet, essentially firing the carriage out of a magnetic cannon at high speeds to seek across the disc. Unfortunately, I'd get those springs crossed, the carriage would collide with high speed spinning disk, fragments of metal and curls of aluminum confetti would shoot off in all directions (we usually had the mechanism open and side panels removed) accompanied by the apocalyptic shrieking of rended metal. And the red-faced glower of my boss Lou...ahh, good times, and don't get me started on the forklift races we'd hold in the warehouse after watering down the concrete floor to make it extra slick...yes, those were the days...
..,hey Fox, how 'bout a hit off'n that Geritol bottle when you're done there...
Almost forgot:
Anybody think of doing a parody of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"?
See my post to SDAI-Tech1 about calculators bursting into flames. The story of technology began with fire, don't forget. Prometheus did in fact start the fire and us geeks carry the torch!