During the past 50 years of developing computers and different operating
systems, it seems like different agencies and corporations were scared to
give you work if you didn't have their computers. or software.
VAX -- the digital mini-computer and mainframe used by state highway departments.
It seemed like I new more about the Intergraph binary format than
the easy to disassemble dxf file format. No VAX in-house, no work.
At the DOT, we are big. Do not try to do our work with a PC.
MS-DOS -- you had to have an IBM PC to do certain clients work. Different
DOS versions meant no work.
Autocad -- if you an Autocad user, you cannot possibly understand Microstation.
If you have six computers using Autocad and one computer using
Microstation with an operator who knows nothing but Microstation,
six bad votes means no work.
ArcInfo -- if you do not have the zillion dollar version of ArcInfo, no work.
If you think you can get by with ArcView, no work.
Intellicad -- it does not matter if you can read Autocad disks, you must be poor.
We do not give poor people work.
MacIntosh -- if you do not use a MacIntosh, then you are harmful to the environment.
You must drink Budweiser instead of German beer. No work, better yet,
do not even discuss compatabiity.
From 1990 till 1993, I delt with messed up conversions from Autocad to Microstation. We told all the people that wanted to do contract work for us to use Microstation or we would find someone else that did. The ones that wanted to keep working for us all got Microstation and Inroads, and people that know how to use it. All of my CADD conversion problems went away, until some CAD Monkey tried to do a job in AutoCAD and convert it. They were 2 weeks late getting it turned in, and the file was corrupted. I wadded it up and sent it back for repairs. It took about 5 minutes to fix it with EDG, but the contractor did not know how to do that. About 2 weeks later the new CADD Monkey delivered the job correctly. We started using another firm to do our contract work after that, and very few problems. The conversions work much better now, but it is a lot easier to do it once with the desired software and then you don't have to worry about conversions
if Autodesk or Bentley want to compete in the CAD market, it sure took
them a long time to get it right.