"Lare S" wrote in message
...
Steve said "get Auto-Cad, drafting tables are only good to read
newspapers on." I beg to differ!. I was "on the board" for 35 years
before CAD as a mechanical draftsman/designer/engineer. CAD is
absolutely necessary these days for speed, accuracy, change, etc. but
it's a totally impersonal, robotic tool that stifles the mind, steals
creativity and pride-of-accomplishment, It THINKS for you! Today it's
just a job, not fun. How many people can, with their own two hands and
eyes, draw a precise angle or a radius, strike a circle, use a French
curve, read a scale, use decimals, understand the Metric system, handle
delicate instruments and print legibly?

I can. ;~) but then I started out on the drawing board also. It is cool
when a fellow draftsman recognises that you draw by looking at you printing
or visa versa. I never made drafting my profession but was good enough in
school that I won several awards in college competition.
That said, I am self taught on CAD and consider it to be no more of a crutch
than a t-square or triangles or GASP, a Mini Calculator. It is simply a
differnt kind of tool. Like anything else you have to get used to it.