Opening MiniCad files from VectorWorks

[James D]

When I tried to open a MiniCad 6 file from VectorWorks 12.5.2 I got the message: "This file is in an old format not read by this version of the program. Please contact Nemetschek NA about converting it."

Can someone please help me with this? Thanks.

[Guest]

VW 12 can read back to MiniCAD 7 files.

Please contact Tech Support for converting the file.

[Donald Wardlaw]

When I got my first job in 1970 there was no such thing as a computer in regular architectural offices. But we had a large file systems of drawings for all the projects the firm had done. It was sometimes almost impossible to find things, but they were all there and they could all be printed. Nothing was ever really lost unless, heaven forbid, you had a fire.

One key feature of the computer revolution was the ability to find things via searches. Another was the compactness of the stored material. I quit my day job and went out on my own about the time personal computers were becoming pretty usefull and we all could see they were going to relentlessly transform architectural practice. It was an exciting time to start out on my own. I intended to shape a practice without all the operational failures of the old way.

So here I sit 18 years later. My office is different even than a year ago. I have thrown out all our product binders. I stopped renting an office. My office equipment consists of a recent model powerbook, a wacom tablet, two printers a telephone and a wireless router. All the drawings I've done on my own (except a few renderings) are sitting inside this laptop, along with all the other files related to customers and running a business. I think what I can do has grown while my office infrastructure has shrunk. I am pretty well backed up. That is, there are multiple copies, all equally good, of the product I've made.

Yet still I have effectively lost some things, unlike the old way offices. I have lost big chunks of email to drive failures and inadequate backup. Some email lives in software that no longer runs here.

I have CAD files in Minicad 6, 5, 4 and 3. They are not only unreadable, but since 250mb was a really big hard drive in those days, most of these files are compressed with disk doubler, a program that no longer exists. None of these old programs will run on my current computer. Some of them even require floppy disks to install.

So, much to my chagrin I find that 18 years into my own modern practice, which I love, the first 6 or 7 years of my work is unreadable. It's like some one locked the plan files and threw away the key.

So I've gone from a paradigm where everything was there, but you could never find it but you could look at and print what you found, to one where everything is here, I can show you exactly where, but I can't look at some of it and I can't print it.

I realize now that I have to do a better job of protecting what I can still read. But , the pencil gods are smiling.

Regards,

Donald

[Petri]

A most pertinent, appropriate, insightful, relevant (I'm running out of adverbs...) article, Donald!

Much to my chagrin, I realised a few years ago that a large number of files, religiously copied to consecutive media, had at some point been corrupted. This did not happen when I was young and nimble in the 1970s... Papyrus scrolls are still readable, but this is Progress.

Now, I'd be more than happy to give a go with your DiskDoubler files and files in ancient versions of MiniCAD. Incidentally, I just tried to install VW 8, but obviously I had the serial number only in the manual (recycled years ago), not on the CD. Perhaps I can still install MiniCAD 6 or 7! (The MC 7 CD seems to have the serial number.)

Just send a private message and we can go from there.

And hey - buy a stockpile of pencils and paper, as long as they are still available!

[Donald Wardlaw]

Petri,

Thanks for the kind offer. I will need to give some thought to the inherent liability of being able to read and print the first work I did!

All the best,

Donald