New Old Topic- moving from PowerCadd 6 to 9

[Howard in Durham]

I suppose it is somewhat embarrassing, but I have continued to use PowerCADD 6 in a partitioned drive running Snow Leopard. In fact I was personally flamed by the late Bill Stanley for delaying upgrading through the 2007-09 Great Recession and afterwards! I am planning to purchase a new Mac Mini, which will probably run only Catalina, so I am planning on installing Parallels Desktop, and installing Mojave within Parallels, and then running the current PowerCADD and Wild Tools within Mojave.

I recall that specific advice had been offered in the past about the correct way to open old PowerCADD 6 files in the current PowerCADD version, OR the correct way to convert these old files into useable current PowerCADD files. If anyone recalls or can retrieve these specific instructions and advice, I would greatly appreciate this information. Better late than never!

[patrickm]

I don't think you need to do anything special. When opening old files, you'll get a message saying that a new file will be created, click "ok" and you'll be off and running. As I recall, you'll only have to update the "page setup" options for each file, to put in on the right size sheet. One of the things I like about PC is that it (at least now) is so backwards compatible.

This is the message I got just now while opening a file from 1998:

Screen Shot 2020-04-23 at 9.50.21 AM.png (93.48 KiB) Viewed 26717 times

[johncruet48]

Yes, the backward compatibility is quite good. I'm actually able to open PowerDraw files in PowerCadd 9.x. However, there are some issues related to font handling that I find I have to update in each file. These are easy enough.

[Howard in Durham]

In getting ready to upgrade both my 10 year old iMac and PowerCadd 6 to PowerCadd 9, I am asking all who know, what OS version PowerCadd 9.1.11 runs best under? I am currently running High Sierra, 10.13.6. Do I need to upgrade to a more current (non-Catalina) OS, or will PC 9.1.11 be OK with High Sierra?

[johncruet48]

I'm running PowerCADD 9.1.11 on my iMac Mid 2011 running El Capitan. It is running flawlessly.

Also running it on my MacBook Pro 2019 running Mojave. Suggest you do not upgrade your hardware to Catalina until the 64 bit version of PowerCADD iOS released.

[Howard in Durham]

First thanks to PatrickM and JohnC for their timely responses to my queries. A related issue has to do with evaluating the various processor options available for new and nearly new iMacs and Mac Minis. It seems that the single processor speed scores for the various available processors do not vary by much- maybe 10-12% differences in speeds, but the multi-core processor speeds do vary quite a bit between 2,4 and 6 core processors of varying speed i-3, i-5 and i-7 processors. My primary question is this- does PowerCadd run speeds depend primarily on single processor speeds or does it take advantage and use multi-processor processes? In a related question, do those of you with purely non-mechanical SSD drives notice significant performance advantages over mechanical hard drives and hybrid 'Fusion' drives? And finally, is there any advantage in using PowerCadd to upgrade memory beyond 16g B, to 32 gB or more? Looking forward to your responses!

[Alfred Scott]

Howard,

PowerCADD uses only a single processor. However a second processor will be used automatically by the OS during printing, but it all happens so smoothly that it’s hardly worth thinking about.

No question that running on a SSD will make a huge difference in performance of your machine with all programs. Everything on my machine is operating on a SSD. I don’t even remember the details but it’s a monster SSD.

The only place where multiprocessors are used is with PixelTools in WildTools with the CoreImage filter tool, but even there it’s just silly to think about it because everything happens very quickly.

The most time consuming processing is with some of the terrain modeling in TopoTools. This is for topo contours and slope analysis. I’m working on getting this back running again now.

Alfred

[johncruet48]

My iMac mid-2011 uses a 500GB hard drive. Boot-up is slow. Even when the screen is in full view, opening files and programs takes a while for the next 3 to 4 minutes after start-up.

My Macbook Pro 2019 with its 250GB SSD boots up quickly. After login, and shortly after the screen boots up, programs and files are fully functional after launch.

[Alfred Scott]

John,

I also have a Mid 2011 iMac 27. I wanted to go to a SSD. When I first bought it from Apple, I shipped it off to OWC and they put in an internal 240GB SSD as HD. The spinning hard disk is named HD2 on my machine.

Later I wanted more. I love OWC, and I tried to buy a SSD using a connection method they said would not work. So I asked them what they could do for me.

These 2011 machines have Thunderbolt 1, and they sold me a LaCie Rugged 1TB Thunderbolt drive, which has a spinning Seagate 1TB hard disk, which I removed and replaced with an OWC 1TB SSD. It’s now named HD3 and it is my startup disk.

Jack Amos has the same machine as mine, and he did the same thing.

While I use Time Machine and have a Time Capsule for my office, I also buy cheap USB drives at Staples as extra backups. I copy all the files to these from time to time, and when I buy a new machine, I copy all the files and retire the drives to off site storage.

As it happens, I needed some files from the last save to storage and the FireLite Smartdisk had an old style square USB connector. It had been in the attic of our place on the river since 2012, and it runs fine.

So I just bought a 2TB Seagate at Staples for about $60 and I’m copying all the backup files from 2012 to it.

It’s slow but cheap and reliable.

Alfred

[Howard in Durham]

Many years back I had my own HP wide format printer. Around the time it died its final death, I discovered that local print shops allowed me to email them large format size, (i.e. 24" x 36") pdf files. I was able to select these print size pages because, even though the wide format printer was somewhere between my office and the city dump, I kept the original print driver, which continued to show up in Snow Leopard's 'Page Setup', allowing the selection of 'C' size and/or 'D' size drawings. My current High Sierra OS, where my newly upgraded PowerCADD 9 resides does not have any wide format print drivers. I need to continue to produce 24" x 36" size pdf files to email to my local reprographics shop. Can I simply download a freebee print driver like gutenprint, or is there another hopefully simple way of producing a single page 24" x 36" drawing that is not a mosaic of 8.5" x 11" pages?