Escapee from insane asylum needs help installing Acad V12_c4 on modern computer!!!

[nutter]

Has anyone been crazy enough to install V12 on a modern computer? I would love to get my old software running under vista as it's still very usefull but there are some snags. The first is obviously the massive increase in speed of the machine. The second may be the dongle. Mines a Sentinel pro which if my fading memory serves me correctly is a parallel port type with a DB25 style connector (wierd!!). The numbers on it are 4P98GH-B and 9516L52110 if that has any meaning to anyone. Has anyone been seriously desperate/mad/stubborn enough to do it????

[CADDmanVA]

Wow, cool. I'd love to see R12 running on new hardware like this. I remember how long it used to take to render a simple cube... Anyhow, I don't know what to do about the dongle. You could try looking for an adapter if your new box doesn't have the parallel port. You may have some trouble actually loading it though. Is your R12 the Windows or DOS version? Maybe Vista will be nice and let you run it through legacy mode, or you'll have to download an emulator to run it.

[jaberwok]

Start here (http://www.safenet-inc.com/products/sentinel/hardware_keys.asp) for info. I know there were port drivers for NT4 and 2K, XP and Vista are all developments of that.

[ekubaskie]

The dongle plugs in to a parallel port, and most boxes still have one. If not? Well, I don't know whether the software checks LPT1 through DOS or looks directly at the port's memory address, so I can't say if an external USB-parallel adapter would work. Best bet would be to get a parallel-port PCI-card. They cost a lot less than USB adapters, too - probably under 20 bucks.

Meanwhile, if you run across a DB-9 to DB-25 cable adapter and are tempted to plug into a serial port... DON'T... as the higher RS-232 voltages might fry the dongle.

[jaberwok]

BTW, it will be difficult, maybe impossible, to use a tablet with this setup because acad's handler cannot cope with modern processor speeds. WinTab may solve this problem if it arises.
Please tell us how you get on with this.

[Avatart]

I wonder if you would have success running R12 under a DOS emulator, you can, if memory serves, get emulators that deliberately slow down your system speed by running pointless loops, these are used for legacy gaming, that could be a way forward.

If you get this to work, PLEASE post up some screen shots, I used to love R12. :cry:

[nutter]

Alas poor yorricks key was dead! Back to the nut house (unless it's possible to get a new key generated from the numbers on the old one... boy is that a long shot!)

Found a key tester for the old sentinel pro keys called "Sentinel Medic" and it can be found at "http://www.safenet-inc.com/products/sentinel/hardware_keys.asp" if anyone's interested. Also there's a driver called "Sentinel Protection Installer 7.4.0" that's Vista compatable. Don't install the servers/key managers just the drivers.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[Avatart]

Alas poor yorricks key was dead! Back to the nut house (unless it's possible to get a new key generated from the numbers on the old one... boy is that a long shot!)
Alas poor key, I knew him Horatio.

If you have a fully licenced R12, AutoDesk should be able to calculate the key value for you, you can them use a USB key to emulate the old dongle (this does work, I've tried it in other old dongled packages).

[robert.1.hall72202]

I give you props for your thread title.....it is worth a laugh.

[cadtag]

Alas poor key, I knew him Horatio.

If you have a fully licenced R12, AutoDesk should be able to calculate the key value for you, you can them use a USB key to emulate the old dongle (this does work, I've tried it in other old dongled packages).

Autodesk _may_ have the technical capability, but just as likely that information is archived off site, or just flat out lost. (are any developer's from that date still working as coders in Autodesk????) I'd also be _highly_ suprised if they would provide any level of support for software that ole. Heck they barely support 2006 anymore!

You might find a tech nerd in Adesk who would be interested as a fun project, but probably unofficially.

[Avatart]

Autodesk _may_ have the technical capability, but just as likely that information is archived off site, or just flat out lost. (are any developer's from that date still working as coders in Autodesk????) I'd also be _highly_ suprised if they would provide any level of support for software that ole. Heck they barely support 2006 anymore!

You might find a tech nerd in Adesk who would be interested as a fun project, but probably unofficially.
There are websites out there (the URL of which is not leaping to mind) that deal with historical software, a bit of a Google may turn something up, like an old engineers code or something?

[jguest82179]

OK, here's a possible solution (if you can solve the dongle issue) for being able to run R12 - why not simply grab an old box from somewhere and a KVM switch and run it native?

It should be fine on a machine up to about 300 MHz, and you should be able to pick one of those up for next to nothing. I have about a half a dozen old boxes from 133 through to 500 MHz sitting around collecting dust, but the postage would be a killer.

I, too, loved R12 (on DOS). It was what I started out on, and I remember being able to load a 14.4 MB drawing on a P60 with 16 MB of RAM - see what happens when you try to use 90% of your physical RAM to open a file on one of todays XP/Vista boxes?!? :shock:

[CADDmanVA]

...I, too, loved R12 (on DOS). It was what I started out on, and I remember being able to load a 14.4 MB drawing on a P60 with 16 MB of RAM - see what happens when you try to use 90% of your physical RAM to open a file on one of todays XP/Vista boxes?!? :shock:

Memory addressing just isn't as simple as it used to be. I remember learning the uber-advanced AME rendering package on our R12 systems. I always got a kick out of R12 taking 20 minutes to render a gradient shade on a simple cube! Oooo! Remember when plotting the regeneration progress "spinner" would go up to 104%?

[jguest82179]

LOL.

I think that's stretching even my memory. (It's been ten years, after all.)

I sometimes think that R12 on DOS was more productive than the successive versions - after all, we didn't have email and the internet to distract us and nobody could Alt+Tab to bring CAD back to the front when the boss walked in the room.:wink:

Truly, though, my favourite feature was the ease with which you could set up a tablet and customise the system. I remember I had only done about forty hours of CAD in college and a few weeks into my new job at the time (I was the only electrical draughtsman in an office with thirty plus mechanical seats) I was told that if I wanted customisations to suit me then I would have to do it myself. Talk about being thrown in the deep end!!:shock:

I learned a heap though, and I've been customizing ever since, to the end that I'm now doind a 'CAD Management' role (albeit without the official title and accompanying salary).:lol: