Visio 2000, other low-end CAD fer a laptop....

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Does it half to be a laptop? You can get a lot more computer for a lot less money in a desktop.
If I were you, I'd get this computer from Costco:
http://tinyurl.com/2azxb8v
And then buy Alibre, and spend the time and money to really learn the software.
You'll be able to do anything you ever wanted. =================================================Yeah, it does have to be a laptop.
According to Ned, Alibre runs on a "not too fancy laptop" -- hopefully that means 2 GB, with whatever video cards the laptops have.
I'll check Alibre's site for system requirements.

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    --Wait 'til another netbook comes up on woot.com They're only a couple hundred bucks now since Ipad came out and they're pretty good.

I is apparent that this person has no idea what Visio can and will do. I've drawn hundreds of data sheet IC designs with it.
My wife uses it to draw landscaping for the 7 acres we have to play with. I have a pro package for some of that - and more - but it has plants and all. It can do all sorts of jobs. It is far from the little line drawing cad you think.
On 5/8/2010 11:21 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
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(Amazon.com product link shortened)73335362&sr=1-1

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Have only used the Visio with Orfice 2003-2007, it's intended as a work-flow tool to replace guys standing at chalkboards and drawing boxes. Never saw any CAD bits beyond the pretty-fied box-drawing stage. Supposedly, you can feed your fancy boxes into one of MS's other programs and get code out, never got to that stage. So the tool has been changed past what it started as. Old program versions come with no support and no bug-fixes, OK if you can live with it. Sometimes they won't run on later OS versions, more troubling. The local MS-blessed training outfit doesn't even offer training for Visio.
I used TurboCAD for 2D stuff a looong time ago, I'd look at that first, myself. Was easy enough to figure out how to work it. There are some other cheap CAD programs out there, you might see if they've got the features you need.
Stan