PTC First to Ship 64-Bit CAD for Windows 64

PTC plans to ship the 64-bit version of its Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0 CAD software on the same day that Microsoft releasses Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. It'll run on IBM IntelliStation A Pro computers that use AMD's Opteron CPU [burn to Intel!].

PTC says that a 64-bit CAD system "reduces the memory limitations of 32-bit-operating systems that forced users to divide large datasets to conform to the memory restriction, allowing access to an unimaginable 18 billion GB of addressable memory."

Emphasis on "unimaginable."

What this means is that CAD software is no longer limited to accessing 2GB RAM (in Windows 2000) or 3GB (in XP). In practice, Pro/E is limited to accessing the amount of memory in the computer, and for now that's not going to be 18TB. [Gosh, and to think that at one time Microsoft thought that 0.64MB was more than enough for anyone's needs.]

Comments

[Evan Yares]

First to ship 64-bit CAD? I don't think so. Maybe first under WinXP x64 -- but what makes you think that Microsoft is early in the 64-bit OS game?

If I had to make a bet about who was first with CAD on 64-bit, it would be Dr. Patrick Hanratty, of Manufacturing and Consulting Services -- the father of CAD.

[Rod Levin]

I don't know about 64, I was using Dr. Hanratty's Anvil 4000 on a 36 bit (9 bit bytes) Honeywell CP6 Mainframe in the mid 80's. Weird but true.

[Evan Yares]

I checked.

http://www.mcsaz.com/about/history.htm

It was in 1976. AD-2000 shipped for 32, 48, and 60 bit computers. AD-2000 was actually designed to run on anything out there, and even today, it's progeny (Anvil Express) is completely portable. (I spent some time talking to Dr. Hanratty at COFES last week, and had the privilege of actually seeing some of his source code.)

An interesting note is that, had Dr. Hanratty thought about it, he could have had Adam or AD-2000 running on S-100 bus computers (PCs) anytime he wanted to. But he didn't, and Mike Riddle did... and Mike ended up creating the first PC CAD system. He showed it to his friend John Walker -- which led to them cofounding Autodesk.

[Paul]

Funny that. AnvilExpress wont run on my 64 bit Dell Precision.