Railfan Technology > Old AutoCAD CD

Hello Trainorders Community,

  When planing a model railroad, it is very helpful to have software that lets you accurately lay out your ideas.  For many years I've been using AutoCAD, or one of its clones.  Years ago I could use AutoCAD for free because I was in college.  Now I'm using DraftSight, a free 2D clone, but it will go 3D and require a subscription at the end of the year (approximately).  

  I've been looking for an old version of AutoCAD LT (LT = light or 2D).  Something I can run offline on a Windows XP machine with NO subscription and NO internet connectivity at all.  Occasionally, I've found something like AutoCAD 2006 LT on eBay, for a few hundred dollars, which is absurd for an old used product.  I've found it cheaper, but it does not have a Licence Key (meaning you can't use it), and AutoDesk might be willing to sell you a new Licence Key for...   a boat load of money.

  Does anyone here have an old copy of AutoCAD they would be willing to sell?  Does anyone know where I could get an old copy of AutoCAD?  Any help you can offer would be appreciated. 

Keep ckecking ebay daily for aversion that suits your needs.  And feel free to send a message to the seller for anything that is outrageously priced for well out of date software.  Ebay prevents sellers from cancelling an auction or Buy It Now and making a side deal.  (As an occassional seller myself, my 'fine print' states I will not make a side deal) 

As ebay automatically edits messages to the seller, you may have to use some intentionally mispelled words in a note to the seller to ask them to change the price on ebay and then you'll buy it.  I've been known to watch a listing expire and wait for a repost at a hopefully, lower price.  Or, if the item has a fixed price and a 'or make an offer', make a lowball offer about 25% lower than what you're willing to pay.  I've lowball offered a number of times as well as sent a cryptic message asking to lower the ebay price when no 'offer' was available.  I've accepted offers as well for items I've sold since I want it GONE more than getting top dollar for it.  I've even asked to have an 'offer' button added to an item and after an offer/counter offer, I bought it.  And for auction items, make NO bids until the last 20 seconds and then bid 20-25% higher than current bid as there's a number of last second bidders out there, myself included.

For what it's worth, when I upgraded from XP to Win 7 some years ago, I bought a number of 1-or-2 release old software products on ebay that were compatible with Win 7 asince buying an upgrade from the vendor was too expensive.  I'm just starting to make the transition to Win 10 (If I don't smash my computer first as Win 10 really sucks!) and using application transfer software or simply trying to install directly on my new Win 10 guinea pig laptop as I save ALL software download files in a separate folder.  I finally had to bite the bullet and join the $10/mo club for Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom, so I'm good there.  However, I have little doubt I'll end up keeping my Win 7 box going for the same reason I still have an XP box...some software is too expensive to upgrade to Windows 10 compatibility...MS Office for one!  I use a KVM to switch between computer with just a couple of keystrokes, so it isn't that difficult to keep 3 (soon 4) computers using the same keyboard, mouse and Video.

FWIW, I still use AutoCAD 2000 (R15). For many years I used it on my old XP machine but that finally died. I tried out the WinXP emulator on my Win7 laptop and that worked really well, though you are still limited to the amount of RAM an XP machine can have even when the physical RAM exceeds those limitations. So, if you are successful in locating an AutoCAD disk, you won't be limited to WinXP. Unfortunately, the WinXP emulator is not available in Win10.

Thank you for the ideas, guys.

  Wow, I had no idea Ebay filtered out so much of your messages.  I knew they prevented you from sending personal email addresses for safety/security.  Preventing you from asking about price changes seems like going to far.  

  I have used Oracle's Virtual Box to run XP in Windows 7 before.  Eventually, I decided it was better/easier to have a separate hard drive in the box with its own install of XP, and install old software there.    I still have the XP installation disk and licence key, so hopefully I can keep using it forever.  I have never tried to run Virtual Box on Windows 10, but the website claims it is possible.  

I've been using Microsoft's XP Mode. I haven't tried out the other emulator. I know I tried everything I could think of for about a month on my Win10 machine before formatting and installing Win7.

I keep an old machine running with a version of Photoshop Elements and the driver for my old ALPS printer will work.  Comes in handy for decals for my models.  Now if I just knew how to do Vector instead of Raster, I'd be all set.

How about Fusion 360 by Autodesk.  It's a 3D modelling program that's free for hobbyists....
https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/fusion-360-for-hobbyists

Jeff

I've used Fusion 360 before, and it's great for 3D modeling mechanical parts.  It's not so great for large 2D designing, like planning a layout or track plan.  

I did successfully find an old AutoCAD copy on ebay, unfortunately it looks like AutoDesk already thought of my plan...  I have the Serial Number, upon install it generates a Request Code.  You have to send this Request Code to AutoDesk to get an Activation Code or you can only use the free 30 day trial.  AutoDesk just says my 2009 version of AutoCAD is not supported, and won't give me an Activation Code.  Poo...

In case anyone else is looking for a good 2D CAD system, I think I found my solution: QCAD.  There's a free version, and the Pro version is ~ $40.  Not bad for a solid little program that can edit .DWG and .DXF files.