AutoCAD and trivia. If you like both of those, chances are you’re a significant—though not necessarily total—nerd. Good for you! It takes major nerdiness to really make AutoCAD sing. You should embrace that and, since there are few things nerdier than acing an AutoCAD trivia quiz, here’s your chance.
And if you’ve been holding on to some arcane AutoCAD factoids, please send them along via a Comment or an email. We’d be happy to give you credit if we use them later.
In our inaugural AutoCAD trivia post, we’re aiming strictly for old timers. Remember when Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” took over the airwaves? Thought so. You’ve got this.
AutoCAD trivia questions
- How much memory was required to run the IBM PC version of AutoCAD 1.0?
- AutoCAD 1.0 contained roughly how many lines of source code?
- What was the first Unix machine to which an AutoCAD port was attempted?
- What was the original AutoCAD “internal error” crash message?
- What was the original AutoCAD 1.0 U.S. list price?
- Where was Autodesk founder John Walker when COMDEX 1982 opened its doors? What was he doing there?
- What product did Autodesk launch right after AutoCAD? What obscure feature was added to AutoCAD to support it?
But it’s OK if you don’t.
AutoCAD trivia answers
- Memory required: 128KB. That means a modern laptop with 4GB of RAM could have run 32,000 copies of the first AutoCAD release.
- Lines of code: 12,000
- First UNIX machine: AT&T 3B2
- Crash message: “AutoCAD gives up.” At the Anaheim A/E Systems show, in 1985, the VersaCAD booth gave away buttons printed with the phrase “Never gives up.” Ouch. Autodesk changed the crash message in the next release.
- Original list price of AutoCAD 1.0: US$1,000.00
- Walker at COMDEX 1982: He was under the table reseating boards in the Marinchip mainframe in a mad attempt to breathe life into the AutoCAD-80 demo machine.
- Product launched after AutoCAD: The AutoCAD Symbol Libraries—derived from the symbols for the AlphaMerics plotter. Autodesk added “fractional arcs” to AutoCAD shape definitions.
That was fun! Wanna do it again? But maybe with fewer words? Check out AutoCAD Trivia Quiz: Round 2—Mostly Pictures
