Компьютерлік Жобалау және Өндіріс Жүйелерінің Алғашқы Дамуы

Early company in Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing
the field of computer science

Computervision, Inc. (CV) was an early pioneer in Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM). Computervision was founded in 1969 by Marty Allen and Philippe Villers, and headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. Its early products were built on a Data General Nova platform. Starting around 1975, Computervision built its own "CGP" (Computervision Graphics Processor) Nova compatible 16 bit computers with added instructions optimized for graphics applications and using its own operating system known as Computervision Graphic Operating System (CGOS). In the 1980s, Computervision rewrote their code to operate on Unix based platforms. Computervision was acquired by Prime Computer in 1988 for $434 million. Prime subsequently adopted the Computervision name. On December 12, 1998 Parametric Technology Corporation acquired Computervision.

Computervision's first product, CADDS 1, was aimed at the printed circuit board layout and 2 D drafting markets. CADDS stood for Computervison Automated Design and Drafting System. The CADDS 1 system featured a combination digitizer and plotter mounted on a large drafting table. Integrated circuit layout was added with the CADDS 2 product, which had a dedicated operating system and a 16 bit graphic database. When this proved insufficient resolution for VLSI (very large scale integration), the company developed CADDS 2/VLSI in the late 1970s. CADDS 2/VLSI included a new operating system, a 32 bit database, and user expandability through a dedicated programming language called ICPL (integrated circuit programming language), which was a dialect of BASIC, based on an interpreter licensed from Fairchild Semiconductor. The original CADDS 2 ran on Data General Nova 1200 computers. CADDS 2/VLSI ran on Computervision's own hardware/software which was a modified Data General Nova with a modified version of DG's RDOS operating system. CADDS3 was introduced in the late 1970s on the CGP80 and CGP100 using Tektronix storage tube vector devices as display terminals and graphics tablets with menus for operator input. CADDS3 was written in Fortran and based on software developed by Patrick Hanratty and acquired from S3 Corporation around 1973. In 1975, Computervision introduced an improved database that allowed additional entities and data types to be introduced easily. Other improvements, including a B spline package and improved refresh performance led to adoption by many large customers, including Boeing, which purchased dozens of systems for the 757/767 aircraft program. Improved 3 D design was added in the early 1980s with the CADDS4 product on the CGP200. This version of CADDS moved display technology from storage tube base displays to raster graphics and introduced the dedicated graphics co processor board known as the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). With CADDS4, tailored packages were available for CAD drafting, CAM (computer aided manufacturing), 3 D modeling, piping and plant design, printed circuit board layout, instrument panel design, and many other applications. During this period, they also contributed to the development of the IGES standard for CAD/CAM data exchange, along with Applicon and other competitors. The major breakthrough in 3 D Design was with the CADDS4X on the CGP200X running CGOS200X. This version of the operating system and hardware improved memory management (not true virtual memory) and increased program size. In 1984 a cluster of CGP200X with a proprietary 32 bit processor Analytic Processing Unit (APU) was offered as the Computervision Distributed System (CDS) 4000. The APU was sometimes called "All Paws Up". CADDS production continued into the twenty first century. As of 2019, CADDS (now at version CADDS5) was offered as a CAD/CAM system specialized for shipbuilding.

In 1983 Computervision purchased Cambridge Interactive Systems (CIS), founded by British computer scientist Dr. Dick Newell and Tom Sancha. Computervision was interested in obtaining some of the state of the art technology of the MEDUSA CAD system the Cambridge company had developed. CIS had a partnership with Prime Computer which maintained its option on the MEDUSA source code. At the time, MEDUSA was available on the then newly released 32 bit so called super mini computers, whose most prominent distributors were Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) (with their VAX hardware) and Prime Computer. In 1984 there was a fork in MEDUSA as Prime took its option to keep developing MEDUSA. This in effect created two different versions of MEDUSA: CIS MEDUSA (owned by Computervision, which ran on Prime, Sun and VAX workstations) and Prime MEDUSA (which only ran on Prime computers at the time of acquisition, but which Prime subsequently ported to SunOS as Prime MEDUSA version 5.0). The two versions had a slightly different file format and the development language was developed in slightly different directions. The split in MEDUSA development was merged when Prime Computers acquired Computervision, with the promise to CV customers that VAX and Sun users would not be forced to switch to Prime workstations. Prime was divided into the two main divisions: Prime Hardware, which was responsible for the proprietary computer hardware, and Prime Computervision, which was responsible for the CAD/CAM business with MEDUSA and CADDS. With falling hardware sales Prime eventually stopped production of PRIMOS computers and transferred its maintenance obligations to another company, thus being able to concentrate on the CAD/CAM software business. The company was renamed from Prime Computervision to Computervision (CV).