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Ryan1524 · May 8, 2004, 03:51 PM

i need to substitute these apps if i were to switch to mac. please advise.

-Microsoft Office 2000 >>> Office X for mac or the new Office '04
-Norton/McAfee Anti-Virus >>> No need
-AutoCAD >>> ???
-Borland Turbo C++ (DOS) >>> ???
-Maple 7 mathematics >>> ???
-Corel Draw 10 >>> ???
-Matlab >>> Matlab for mac ?

i heard Corel Draw for mac is killed...can i use Adobe Illustrator for this? or maybe something else? any advice?
as for AutoCad, Maple, and Borland Turbo C++...any suggestions on what to substitute it with?? maybe xCode or some other compiler for C++?? i'm not sure about Maple...it's supposed to be somekind of Math software.

this is for McMaster University in Canada. i would really like to switch to a powerbook for my univ days. please help me make it happen. thx everyone.

f1000 · May 8, 2004, 04:03 PM

There are OS X versions of Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab.

bradoesch · May 8, 2004, 04:15 PM

The gcc compiler should work as long as your writing ANSI code (portable code, whatever the goofy acronym is). Just install the developer tools and the gcc command line compiler is available. I've never used XCode, so I don't know if you can build command line apps with it or not.

Angus_D · May 8, 2004, 05:15 PM

The only OS X compatible CAD program I know of is ArchiCAD.

As far as Corel Draw goes, the popular drawing tools seem to be Illustrator and FreeHand.

Xcode will be fine for cross-platform C/C++/Java development.

f1000 · May 8, 2004, 06:12 PM

PTC has hinted that it might port Pro/E to OS X.

The fact that it has made available an OS X version of Pro/CONCEPT is a good sign:
http://www.ptc.com/appserver/it/icm/...mp;keyword=701

mitchell_pgh · May 8, 2004, 07:03 PM

It would be a bit hard. AutoCAD is a hard one... It's the Quark of the engineering world.

Depending upon how much you use it, you could always consider Virtual PC if it's only once and a while.

Ryan1524 · May 10, 2004, 11:53 PM

any more suggestiosn for Borland C++ command line compiler/coders and AutoCAD? Ashlar Vellum's Graphite or Cobalt maybe??

speaking of VPC nd Autocad, how's the performance? good enough? merely usable? painful?

mitchell_pgh · May 11, 2004, 12:02 AM

Originally posted by Ryan1524:
any more suggestiosn for Borland C++ command line compiler/coders and AutoCAD? Ashlar Vellum's Graphite or Cobalt maybe??

speaking of VPC nd Autocad, how's the performance? good enough? merely usable? painful?

Autocad will be usable, and somewhere in the "not horrible" range, but realistically, if it's a staple of your business, and something that you use every day, you will probably need to stick with Windows

thePurpleGiant · May 11, 2004, 12:03 AM

Originally posted by Ryan1524:
speaking of VPC nd Autocad, how's the performance? good enough? merely usable? painful?

Pretty ordinary. Depends on how fast your machine is. If you used Autocad "every now-and-then" - VPC would be fine. For daily usage though, it will drive you up the wall. It is considerably slower than running it on a PC.

Ryan1524 · May 11, 2004, 01:05 PM

i'll be using it for university. for those who know (canadians), i'll be going to McMaster for Engineering. if i'm not mistaken, they're saying that AutoCad is only used in one class, but rather intensively since it is an eng design course. it's also mandatory.

but that's only for the first year. i'm not sure about the next 3 years.
i'd really like to get a mac for univ. is it really that undoable?? how about engineers who need Autocad but uses macs?? or are they usually forced to use both in their work??

how bout this program: http://www.ashlar.com/ or ArchiCAD??

DavidHossack · May 11, 2004, 05:44 PM

Have you looked at Vectorworks. It is a quite nice, mac like CAD programme that can open and save Autocad files.

http://www.nemetschek.net/

It depends on what you want out of your computer. Is it an AutoCad Course or is it just that drawings need to be produced?

I have used AutoCad 14 on a 500mhz iBook with windows 95 on vpc3 (Os9) and it was just useable.

Ryan1524 · 10:10 PM

i'm not sure about the upper years, but i 'think' this is the course description for the first year that some pople mentioned to me.

Engineering 1C03

Engineering Design and Graphics
Graphical communications; sketching, 2D and 3D computer aided design. Design skills workshops and group design project.

for it to be compatible with AutoCAD, it simply has to be able to open DWG and DXF files, right?

Kermy · May 11, 2004, 08:20 PM

What engineering field? Mechanical? Electrical? Architectural? I'm in Manufacturing Engineering and we don't use Autocad. We use programs like Solidworks, Pro/E, CATIA, etc. None of the 3 have any equivalence on a Mac. Though Pro/E *might*.

Ryan1524 · May 11, 2004, 10:06 PM

the first year programs are common for all students entering engineering at McMaster. but i'm hoping to get into the Electrical and Biomedical Eng stream starting from level 2.

Jan Van Boghout · May 12, 2004, 04:42 AM

Originally posted by Ryan1524:
-Maple 7 mathematics >>> ???

Maple 9 is the first to run on OS X, but you'll get a nervous breakdown using it. Anything remotely related to drawing/plotting/animating is so ridiculously slow (on a 1.25GHz PB), that it's not funny.