For the past five years, I have been working on a book covering the history of the CAD industry. At COFES 2008 I announced that the book, The Engineering Design Revolution - The People, Companies and Computer Systems that Changed Forever the Practice of Engineering, would be made freely available on-line. That has occurred and the book can be accessed at www.cadhistory.net. Each chapter can be individually downloaded or the entire book is available as a single download.

Accoding to Jon Peddie, this is now an $8 billion industry. The book describes how this all started shortly after World War II when MIT began applying its early computer technology to the development of NC machine tools. The Engineering Design Revolution covers how this led to SKETCHPAD, the Electronic Drafting Machine (Itek and CDC) and the formation of Computervision and Applicon. There are 22 chapters that describe the history of the major players in this industry. Many people helped insure that I have my facts straight but since it is an online document, I plan to periodically update the material as new facts emerge.

So, log on to www.cadhistory.net and take a tour of the past 60 years that changed engineering design forever.