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About this Edition

The Autodesk File

Bits of History, Words of Experience

Edited by John Walker

Weasel words Except as otherwise noted in the text, this book is in the public domain and may be reproduced, distributed, and quoted as long as the source is cited. The Third Edition of this book was published by New Riders Publishing in 1989 as ISBN 0-934045-63-6, with copyright retained by Autodesk, Inc. This edition was prepared solely by the editor, to whom Autodesk returned rights to all the material in the Third Edition plus the new Autodesk documents which appear here. “Autodesk” is used herein solely to identify the company, not to imply endorsement of or responsibility for the content of this book. Autodesk retains no copyright interest in the material published herein, and is neither responsible nor liable in any form for this book and its content.

FIFTH EDITION.

ISBN-13: 978-1-936047-09-3
ISBN-10: 1-936047-09-8

Production Notes

This World-Wide Web hypertext edition of The Autodesk File was prepared in January of 2017, and is a complete and unabridged reproduction of the PostScript and Adobe Acrobat electronic editions published in February of 1994 and the original Web edition of August of 1994.

The Autodesk File was written using the LaTeX document preparation system, and originally converted into a WWW HTML files by Nikos Drakos' LaTeX2HTML. Translation of this document into HTML required in excess of 1 gigabyte of virtual memory and more than one hour of CPU time on a 136 MIPS Silicon Graphics Indigo2 workstation with 128 megabytes of physical memory.

The Fifth Edition started with the HTML text of the fourth edition and upgraded the HTML to the Web standards of 2017. Typography now uses Unicode text entities for special characters, and the numerous small sub-documents of the fourth edition have been merged into one document per chapter. Other than correction of typographical and formatting errors, there are no differences in the content of the book.

Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, AutoCAD, AutoCAD AEC, AutoSketch, AutoLISP, and Authorized AutoCAD Training Center are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. AutoSolid, AutoShade, CAD/camera, The Engineer Works, ADI, DXF, ACAD, Advanced User Interface, AUI, AutoFlix, Auto Book, AutoCAD-80, AutoCAD-86, and Autodesk Forum are trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. IBM, PC/XT/AT, Personal System/2, and PC-DOS are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Apollo, DOMAIN, and AEGIS are trademarks of Apollo Computer, Incorporated. DEC, VMS, VAX, and VAXstation are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. Sun Microsystems, Sun Workstation, Sun-2, and Sun-3 are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Incorporated. Silicon Graphics is a registered trademark and Indigo2 is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Microsoft, MS, MS-DOS, and XENIX are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel, 8080, 8086, and 8088 are trademarks of Intel Corporation. Lotus, 1-2-3, and VisiCalc are trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation. Texas Instruments is a registered trademark of Texas Instruments Corporation. WordStar is a registered trademark of MicroPro International Corporation. BASIC is a registered trademark of the Trustees of Dartmouth College. dBase, dBase III, and Ashton-Tate are registered trademarks of Ashton-Tate. Unix is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories. TeX is a trademark of the American Mathematical Society. CompuServe is a trademark of H&R Block, Incorporated. Marinchip, M9900, QBASIC, and WINDOW are trademarks of Marinchip Systems, Ltd. The Golden Age of Engineering, Tools For The Golden Age Of Engineering, and Turbo Digital and its associated logotype are trademarks of Marinchip Systems. CP/M, CP/M-80, CB80, CB86, CP/M-86, and PL/I-80 are trademarks of Digital Research, Inc. Glasnost and Perestroika are trademarx of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Xanadu is a trademark of Xanadu Operating Company, Inc. Labitat is a trademark of External Tanks Corporation. Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh, Lisa, and HyperCard are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Cray and X/MP are registered trademarks of Cray Research, Inc. COMPAQ is a trademark of COMPAQ Computer Corporation. ComputerLand is a trademark of ComputerLand Corporation. Selector V and Micro-Ap, Inc. are trademarks of Micro-Ap, Inc. ANSYS is a registered trademark of Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. Post-it is a trademark of 3M Corporation. Bernoulli Box and the IOMEGA logo are registered trademarks of IOMEGA Corporation. MSC-NASTRAN is a registered trademark of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Z80 and Z8000 are registered trademarks of Zilog, Inc. Big Mac is a trademark of McDonald's Corporation. SOLUTION 3000 and MILLMASTER are registered trademarks of Micro Engineering Solutions Inc. DesignPlus, ManufacturingPlus, DesignExpert, and ManufacturingExpert are trademarks of Micro Engineering Solutions Inc.

Other product names mentioned herein may also be trademarks used here for identification purposes only.

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