Re: Robo-1000 and IIgs compatibility?

[Hugh Hood <hughhood@earthlink.net>]

Antoine:

Thanks so much for making the Robo 1000 and Robo 1500 docs available. I
really enjoyed comparing them with the U.S.- market manuals that I have.

You _may_ (or not) find the following observations interesting:

It appears that the European Robo 1000 System corresponds with the U.S. Robo
CAD-1 System, and that the European Robo 1500 System is the equivalent to
the U.S. Robo CAD-2 System.

As you know, the 1000/CAD-1 System runs on a 64K Apple II+ or better, while
the 1500/CAD-2 System requires a 64K Apple II+ or better _plus_ a
Saturn/Titan 128K Ram Card.

The 1500/CAD-2 System is much more powerful and is faster than the
1000/CAD-1 System, and allows precision scale drafting by entering numeric
dimensions (six figure precision) in addition to just drawing with the help
of scaled grids. It also adds Auto Dimensioning, and, in later versions
(V2.0 and up), a Trap/Window 'Find' feature (essential in my opinion) and a
'Hatch' fill function.

The U.S. Version of CAD-2 eventually was updated to support the Apple Mouse
in place of Robo's proprietary 3-axis joystick, which Robo decided to move
away from in order to support the Apple IIc (with their new U.S. CAD-1+),
and probably to allow them gracefully not to have to repair/service any more
of their one-of-a-kind joysticks, on which they eventually dropped all
support.

{I am not aware of a European equivalent to CAD-1+. It required a 128K IIe,
a IIc, or a IIgs (but no Saturn Card), and attempted to add _most_ of the
features of the CAD-2 package to the CAD-1 package, but unfortunately did
not include the Trap/Window Find or Hatch functions. As previously
mentioned, it did support the Apple Mouse}.

There appears to be one more difference between the early European and U.S.
Products -- while the 1000 and 1500 systems each had a separate manual, the
earlier CAD-2 manual was just a CAD-1 manual with colored 'update' pages
inserted into it to denote changed and/or added features. Not ideal, but I
guess it works. Steven Hirsh, who also has an earlier CAD-2 System,
confirmed that his CAD-2 manual follows the same format as mine, so I guess
it was standard practice for a while.

Robo also sold the following Apple II items for use with their CAD-1/CAD-2
Systems:

1. Plotter Drivers for HP, Houston Instrument, Calcomp and Roland;

2. A CNC interface for running a Bridgeport milling machine from an Apple
II;

3. The RoboDATA Bill of Materials Processor (database stuff);

4. The RoboVIEW 3D Wireframe Visualizer; and,

5. Many pre-drawn symbol libraries, including Analog Schematics, Digital
Schematics, PCB Artwork, Fluid Power Schematics, and Chemical Engineering
Process Schematics.


None of Robo's stuff was inexpensive, which is probably why it wasn't well
known. I never recall it being mentioned in an Apple II mag. I discovered it
in an old Creative Computing article, and I think our company paid almost
$2000 for the software alone back in 1985.

Robo had a fairly good presence in the education market, and a decent amount
of industry customers until AutoCAD became the rage, even though it was
_much_ harder to learn to use than RoboCAD.

Antoine, as time permits, I'll scan some of the old Robo sales brochures to
.pdf and send them to you. May I use the email address that you show in your
posts?






Hugh Hood





in article dd96af7f-5513-4662-8b74-45c5ec178b2b@k5g2000vbf.googlegroups.com,
Antoine Vignau at antoine.vignau@laposte.net wrote on 5/28/12 12:59 PM:

> And for curious people:
> http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/documentation/manual/robocom/
> antoine