DesignWorks is a popular structured drawing program for the Commodore Amiga computer, released by New Horizons Software in 1991. Now it is released for free on Aminet for everyone to download. Thanks!
Technical Drawings on Amiga
The AmigaOS application was designed to help users create technical drawings, diagrams, and illustrations with precision and ease. Some key features of DesignWorks include:
- Object-oriented drawing: Users can create and manipulate objects as independent entities, making it easy to edit and modify drawings.
- Snapping and alignment tools: These tools help users create accurate and professional-looking drawings.
- Text and dimensioning tools: DesignWorks included tools for adding text and dimensions to drawings, making them suitable for technical documentation.
- Symbol libraries: Users can create and use symbol libraries to store frequently used objects, saving time and effort.
- Import and export capabilities: DesignWorks supports various file formats, allowing users to exchange drawings with other programs.
DesignWorks was well-received by Amiga users and was considered a powerful tool for creating technical drawings and illustrations. It was widely used in various fields, including engineering, architecture, and design.
Now with DesignWorks source code released under GPL license, Matt H. released the application for everyone to download on Aminet and I had to test it.
Amiga 2000 Test Usage
So, with this release on Aminet. I had to test the release of DesignWorks on my Amiga 2000 Rev 4 from 1986. With only 512KB RAM even with a PiStorm, I can confirm that DesignWorks works nicely in AmigaOS 3.2
Early Layers
It is one of the very first applications with support for Layers and the fact that it works so smoothly on a machine with only 512KB Chip RAM is remarkable.
DesignWorks is one of many applications from the early 90’s which shows that if you code well, you can then create applications which doesn’t demand lots of resources. Why the heck have tons of PC users told me that you need tons of memory to be able to support Layers in an application? DesignWorks shows that this is not the case at all!
Easy To Use
I found it easy to use. I tested its functions and it’s really fast.
Everything in the program is explained well and the program is fast. So now I really hope that it can get proper AmigaOS support so that it can use system preferences for various screenmodes. It would be awesome to use it on an RTG screen for sure.
