Comment by abdullahkhalids
6 hours ago
No, but I learned yesterday that a carpenter and renovation person I know uses a GUI software from 1996 called "FloorPlan Plus 3D 3.01" [1] to design furniture before he builds it. He has a dusty old laptop running Windows XP on which the only thing that works is this software and the connection to the printer.
He showed me his workflow in detail. It's a beautiful software that does everything he needs.
And notice it's only 3.8 MB - smaller than many SaaS software webpages that offer lesser functionality.
[1] https://vetusware.com/download/FloorPlan%20Plus%203D%203.01/...
I've also helped running an old Windows 3.1 accounting software. It runs perfectly fine on Windows XP inside a VM.
In 2020 it suddenly came to a halt, because the date pickers just couldn't go further than 2019. Nobody seemed to care in 1992 when it was released.
It was really easy to de-compile the Visual Basic 3 software (perfectly legal where I live). My first idea was to get the source cleaned up a bit and compile it again to 32 bit with Visual Basic 4, but I couldn't figure it out, it required some 3rd party libraries that I just couldn't get a hold of.
In the end I just changed the number 2019 in the binary to 2059 in a hex editor, and it just worked. There was only one occurrence of the number 2019 in the whole binary. I guess I got really lucky.
Edit: It seems like Windows and Visual Basic are not affected by the Unix 2038 problem at all. 16 bit Windows seems to be fine until the year 2107.
> My first idea was to get the source cleaned up a bit and compile it again to 32 bit with Visual Basic 4, but I couldn't figure it out, it required some 3rd party libraries that I just couldn't get a hold of.
This was super common for VB apps. The original architecture of VB was, loosely speaking, a GUI container for various pluggable controls connected to a BASIC runtime. The number of controls that came in the box would vary depending on how fancy a version of VB you bought, and you could plug in additional third party controls in the form of "VBX's" - Visual Basic eXtensions. Even though VBX's were designed mainly for GUI controls, they were the easiest extension point for VB and got extensively used for all sorts of integrations until OLE Automation became more prevalent. (Roughly contemporaneous with the switch to 32-bit.)
I wonder if there is a reddit thread with people showing off their surviving Windows XP setups. Mine is a dell tower laying on its side because I harvested a power supply unit from another dell, but it doesn't fit in the case.
Loads of woodworking is done on SketchUp version whatever that's pre-cloud licensing, dating from 2008 I believe. (Cloud aversion, if you will.)
Picasa & Earth era desktop Google software.
I remember using those pre-cloud versions. I loved them. Sketchup was so intuitive (as a 3D modelling noob) it was ridiculous. My tool of choice for making 3D levels for my various OpenGL projects.
I tried to do some rudimentary modelling with modern day Blender and failed. It‘s quite the juggernaut to learn.
What software today do people recommend as an alternative to Sketchup? Is the cloud version any good?
> What software today do people recommend as an alternative to Sketchup?
onshape (web; free to use unless you want to protect your designs) and fusion (autodesk; free license available) are both really popular right now. they work differently than sketchup. i never really made friends with sketchup but the parametric modeling system used in fusion and onshape clicked with me and i really enjoy using them.
I remember running Sketchup for the first time. I had zero experience but in less than 20 minutes I was drawing large complicated machinery, tractors, buildings.
They made a 3d drawing application without a learning curve O_O
All three were bought by Google, they didn't start there.
IIRC that version made it really easy to design things with dimensional lumber. 2x4”s, 2x6”s etc. I have vague recollections of designing a dog house that way from that time period.
I’m not sure how I’d do the same thing now. If I tried to do that now with Fusion, I’d probably have to build out my own primitive set of lumber sizes, right?
A bit of searching turns up lots of references to SketchUp Make 2017. Could this be what you mean?
IIRC SketchUp 8 (released in 2010) was the last version released by Google, which had licensing allowing commercial use of the free version. After the sale to Trimble, later versions of SketchUp 8 and all future free versions become for non-commercial use only. SketchUp Make 2017 was the last free version that could run locally.
Loved using Google Sketchup back in the day! My high school engineering teacher would show off his 3D modeling of cars during class. It was so cool seeing what you could do with that software!