For What Its Worth
Computing stories, Software
Demo
In the late 1980s we where shown a demo of CAD
software that was amazing for it's time. Boolean solids being created like
we had never seen. The salesperson in the end offered to let us keep the
software for a weeks testing. We were ecstatic.
No matter what we did during testing we could not come close to the results of the demo. After some searching we found the demo file that had been used. There were some cleverly done keys that allowed switching to a new, finished part. In short the demo tech would fire off a command and then pop open the finished part instead. The commands in the demo took minutes to hours in reality. Many did not make a part successfully.
This demo was invaluable to us. It convinced management for the next 20 years that we would not buy any software without a thorough hands on tests.
Happy Computing, VHubbard.
Transcribe July 2013