When I was in school we started out with board drafting using T-squares, triangles, and architects scales. There was no such thing as a computer for drafting. After you became accustomed to basic drafting we used the drafting machines. I am not sure how many remember those but they were great.
After I left school for college they got computers and used the program called "Anvil" I went into teaching Agriculture and lost track of the Industrial Arts program. In 2000 I was driving over 500 miles a week to where I taught. I was considering taking the Industrial Arts job back home so I figured I had better learn something about the AutoCad stuff. I enrolled in a beginner level course and we used AutoCad 2000. I ended up staying in the school I was in teaching Agriculture and not utilizing the AutoCad.
Then in 2002 I left that district as it was turning very sour. I took a split teaching position between two different school districts. The first one had two full time guys. One only taught drafting. The other taught welding, maching, and woodworking. They needed a third man to teach additional sections of welding and basic woods but it was only in the morning. There was another district 10 miles east that was cutting back their program and just need a person to teach drafting and woodworking half days. I ended up teaching in both districts. I taught in one in the morning then drove like hell to the other to teach afternoons. I actually loved it. I was able to stay out of the politics of education and just say "hey I have to go". To add more to it neither of those districts were my home district. I actually was on the school board in my home district. I taught in Sherrard mornings, afternoons in Orion, and evenings at Rockridge for board meetings.
This is how starkly different schools are here. In Sherrard where I only taught welding and woodworking the drafting program was 100% AutoCad. There was not a T square in the place. In the afternoons at Orion where I had to teach drafting not only did we not have computers we did not even have drafting desks. We had to use actual 1960's ere drafting boards sey on top regular school desks. I ended up buy a bunch of enormous old drafting desks from Moline schools. I paid $1 each for them. The problem was they would not fit through the classroom door. I ended up putting them in the shop and using them there.
In 2006 the teacher in my home district decided to take a position for higher pay in a city school. I resigned my board seat and replaced him. He had a pretty decent set of old computers running Windows 98 or 2000. They had a site license for AutoCad 2002LT which of course is what they used. I found it to be very adequate for what I needed.......hell I had no idea what I needed but this dumb hick figured out how to run it a bit. I did get help from a few of senior students. My desktop also had a singe seat license for AutoCad 2006 but that was only bought by the previous teacher so he could learn it before going to the city school. The damn thing was $1500!
Well things went along fine running the old 2002LT. That was until the tech guy got a wild hair up his butt and replaced my computers with newer ones. I believe they were running Windows XP. Well AC2002LT will not run in XP!!! He destroyed my ability to teach any computer drafting. It was quite a battle. I did not teach it for a couple years. I ended up getting some sort of a free version of 2012 and muddled through it. Now granted all these years I still taught beginning level drafting with T squares and triangles. I was still using them when I left in 2018.
I now want to be able to draw on my home computer but all I could get was AutoCad 2025 and I cannot figure it out. Hell I could not even figure out how to change a line type or offset. I am frustrated but I will not give up.
