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Clive You make a good point - in 25 years, some of us will have been using DCAD for 50 years (or 45 or whatever). And /or designing harps on some cloud. (or maybe a new shovel design for stoking the fires). We need to get more youngsters into this. Someone who can take over when we fall over, harness and all. A friend's son was surveying large steel pipes (for water) with kinks and intersecting 'tributaries' in all directions - the intersections had to be oxycut out for welding. He drew them using an incredibly complex program.
I showed him how long it took to draw the intersections using DCAD - he was impressed, and I suspect he will be a convert. The other thing you may have noticed Clive is that many around here (minstrel and prl in particular) often mention the synergy between DCAD and Sketchup. I believe I am right in saying that SU costs about $500. You end up with a very neat presentation, but personally I have a problem with the concept of the drafthorse (DCAD) costing so little, and the presentation vehicle (SU) costing 5 times as much. I'll let others expand on and/or correct this observation as they wish or feel inclined - but the combination of the two programs does seem to be pretty impressive.
PS Have you checked out minstrel's youtubes? They are a good introduction. Another fun exercise in adding, subtracting and intersecting solids is this one (well I thought it was fun anyways ).
We cleaned house at work and I saved the following:... Complete in original box: DesignCAD 3D for Windows V5 Reference Manual (1995) DesignCAD 3D for Windows V5 User Guide (1995) DesignCAD 3D for Windows V5 BasiCAD Reference (1995) DesignCAD 3D for Windows V5 floppy disks 3 1/2' DesignCAD 2D Installation and Tutorial Manual (1992) Advertising, etc. Complete in original box: DesignCAD 2D/3D 97 Reference Manual (1997) DesignCAD 2D/3D 97 Usre's Guide (1997) DesignCAD 2D/3D 97 CD Advertising, etc. Ok, I'm still trying to track down some versions. Phil, you are saying versions 5 were released as separate 2d/3d products in both in DOS and Windows? I know for sure: 2d versions 4 to 6.1 were in DOS. 3d version 4 was in DOS but you're saying there was also a Windows version 5 in both 2d/3d.
Was there also a Windows version 6 in 2d or 3d or both? I may have been ignoring them because they were Windows and so different. I too thought version 7 was the first Windows in 2d, but I can't demonstrate that. But I do have DesignCAD 8 in 2d for Windows. Then comes combined 2d/3d DesignCAD for Windows versions..
DesignCAD 97 2d/3d (version 9) DesignCAD Pro 2000 2d/3d, (ver 10) etc. Edit: I'm ignoring the subsequent 2d lite versions which I'm guessing are recompiled 3d versions crippling the 3d part. Hi all, I have a couple of corrections to the history of DesignCAD. As Phil wrote: DesignCAD was originally ProDesign and was developed by Robert Webster of Pryor, Oklahoma, and he formed ASBC, i.e.
American Small Business Computers, along with another guy, whose name escapes me. The other guy, or maybe both of them, were very interested in model airplanes, and I recall that the other guy retired in the beginning of the 1990'es to pursue this interest. DesignCAD was originally a DOS program for 2D only, and I don't know, when the first 3D version was released, but Magic Systems took over distribution in Denmark in 1993, and that's when the first DesignCAD 2D for Windows, which was version 7, was first released. The first DesignCAD 3D for Windows was version 8, and both the 2D and the 3D versions were disasters.
Robert Webster's brother Mike had a video tutorial company, and they merged with ASBC in 1995/6, and the new company was called ViaGrafix. I think DesignCAD 97 was the first program to be a combination 2D and 3D, and that the 2D version was to have been discontinued. But then in 1999 DesignCAD 2000 (2D/3D) and DesignCAD 2000 Express (2D only) were released. In 1999 ViaGrafix was sold to another video tutorial company called Learn2, but they were only interested in the video tutorial part, so only a few months later Bob Webster bought back DesignCAD and formed Upperspace still in Pryor, OK. Up until 2003 DesignCAD 2D was a $300 program and DesignCAD 2D/3D cost $500. In 2003 IMSI bought DesignCAD and as the IMSI executives knew retail sales, they decided to reduce the DesignCAD 2D price to $49.99 and DesignCAD 2D/3D to $99.99.
Btw: Bob Webster retired and built himself an Aircam (a real airplane) and flew around the United States in it. However, the directors of IMSI wanted to change the company into a video streaming company (this was before Netflix), and Bob Mayer and his associates bought out the software part of IMSI and created IMSI/Design in 2005. Phil mentioned ContourCAM as an example of BasicCAD programming, but actually ContourCAM is programmed in C++ and utilizes another excellent DesignCAD feature, namely the OLE interface. 
Magic, I said ContourCAM was an example of use of the SDK to add programming functions to DesignCAD. I didn't mean to imply that it was a BasiCAD 'macro.' Thanks for the corrections and additions.