C&G dos stand alone in windows 2000

[Rick Samuelson]

I have the dos version of C&G and we recently upgraded to windows 2000. I loaded C&G on it and i cant plot drawings and i am crashing quite regularly. My help is running LDD and Im not proficient running Autocad.
Can anyone recommened anything that I could do

[Larry P]

Yes Rick there is something you can do. But, you may not want to do it.

Windows 2000 and all versions and flavors of Windows since and for the future will present you with the same problem. As a way to make the Operating system more stable and secure, programs are not allowed to communicate with attached devices directly. Any communication HAS to be done through Windows. This means, you will not be able to print, plot or do anything else from a Dos window.

So, you ask, what can I do. The answer is simple but for some quite painful. You should switch to C. & G. for Intellicad. There is a steep learning curve and you will lose some productivity while you make the change. After you have made the change from Dos to Intellicad, you will wonder why you waited so long. There are so many things you can do with Intellicad that just aren't possible with the Dos product.

For what it is worth, I made the switch 2½ years ago and would never go back.

One last thing, if you think you might need help in making the change, I can tell you that getting someone to come in and help you get started is a very very good idea. I teach some classes in Intellicad for Beginners and would be glad to discuss this with you. One good way to do this is to have me come to your area and teach a class sponsored by the local chapter of your professional society. They can be very effective as fund raisers for your group. Plus, you get the training and PDH credits you need close to home.

Good luck.
Larry P

just_me_41_1999<no spam>@yahoo.com
(remove the no spam

[Gary Cottrell]

This discussion has come up before, and Larry P. has correctly diagnosed your problems of trying to operate a DOS program in a Windows environment, particularly one that has almost no DOS kernel of commands.

Having myself been a C&G user since 1983, I can tell you that you won't like his solution. I have been using both C&G for ICad and for AutoCad since they were introduced, and while they both offer a lot of advantages of the Cad platform (extending and triming lines, model and paper space, for example), there are a LOT of features you're going to give up and not get back (at least not without a lot of workarounds). You're not going to be able to preassign text styles and sizes to layers without text showing, you're not going to be able to "fit a structure" and instantaneously see the offset changes for every incremental movement, you're not going to be able to copy the contents of one layer to another in one or two keystrokes, you're not going to be able to do a lot of the "globals" easily, if at all, you're not going to be able to easily put a north arrow on the drawing at anytime with one keystroke and have it move correctly irregardless of whether you rotate the drawing or rotate the coordinate system; you won't be able to use a digitizer; printing is a nuisance, because the program doesn't handle printer chores, but leaves it to a third party application, like Wordpad, which y
ou have to format before printing; plotting (handled by Windows) is 20 times slower for the same plotter than in DOS, ... ad infinitum. One would think that "progress" would give you a product that incorporates all the simplicity and power of the DOS-Cad seamlessly integrated into an even more powerful Cad platform. Such has not happened. For two and a half years I've remorsely looked back, but life is ever forward; unlike Larry's solution your salvation may be something other than C&G, at least on the drawing end. There are a lot of apps out there that are more user friendly, providing drawing and labeling features that allow you not to become a Cad nerd. Unfortunately, the Cogo aspect of most of these apps are terribly alien, but since the common denominator is the DWG file you're basically free to pick and intermix. For the time being you can still buy a new computer, dump the OS and put DOS only on it for Cogo use (if that's your preferred platform) for as long as they still make Zip drives for transporting data to a Windows Cad system for drawing, if you don't like any of the current Cad Cogo. CG-Dos should really hum with a 1.9 gigaherz processor. Anyways, I thought y
ou might enjoy another perspective

[David Cook]

Really a well thought out and intelligent answer Gary. Quite unlike the myriad of typical responses to just bite the bullet and get Intellicad. FYI, I still use the dos software for everything except sending a dxf or dwg file to someone else. At that point I convert the drawing to dxf in dos and then dwg in intellicad.

I've purposefully kept three older computers running Windows 98 for that purpose. Long live DO