When I was young I enjoyed drawing. Not artistic drawing, but diagrams and architectural drawings, often on graph paper. I thought that I could perhaps be an architect when I grew up. I remember once, when the only computer we had in the house was an already ancient Compaq “Portable” computer (the sturdy leather handle did little to relieve the back strain that carrying it could cause) with an add-on EGA monitor, I asked for a program that would let me create these sorts of drawings on the computer. I didn’t know about CAD (computer aided design) software at the time, and was ignorant that the CAD software of the day was expensive and wouldn’t work on our old PC. My dad took me to a local software store anyway, where it was quickly apparent that all I was going to find there was a DOS based painting program, with aproximately the drawing ability of Microsoft Paint. We left empty-handed.
From the category archives: