An albeit 'Off Topic' bit of trivia... 4

[PSI-CAD]

Hi everybody

I just came back from vacancies and I would like to give my UG experience.

I started using UGII at Unigraphics Solutions France in 1989 with version 6 (no parametric, only 3D wireframe and surfacing, no solid integrated only Unisolids)

I remember the big stations and PFK to enter functions and also the joystick !!!

The ancestor of the sketcher was called UGConcept and arrived in Version 8. I have also a story about it:

After the first installation of this version, we would not be able to use UGII, because the screen is filled very slowly in red without the possibility of anything.
We have come to understand that it was the grid of the sketcher that was very low default !!!

I have spent 2 weeks in Cyprus for UGII V9.1 beta test (Called quality on Time). I found the jacket at the time received (see the image). And now I have just finished the NX9 Beta test with the SubDivision Modeling

John, Could you confirm the following list of version:
UGII V6, V7, V8, V9, V9.1, V10, V10.3, V11, V11.1, V12, V13, V14 ,V15, V16, V17, V18


Regards
Didier Psaltopoulos

http://www.psi-cad.com

 

[looslib]

V10 had a full set of sub-releases: V10, V10.1, V10.2, V10.3, V10.4, V10.5 and I think V10.6 was the last.
Also, V14 had a V14.1 release that could be installed directly, V14.0 not required.

With V10, there were certain releases for different platforms. V10.3 was the first of the V10 to have support for Digital's AXP/OSX-64bit.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[JohnRBaker]

A chronological history of UG/NX:

1969: United Computing releases it's first software product, UniAPT, the first mini-computer version of APT (Automatic Program Tool) for creating NC toolpathes and then postprocessing them for driving machine tools.

October 1973: Unigraphics is demoed for the first time at a trade show in Detroit.

September 1974 - 1978: United starts to deliver the first commercial versions of Unigraphics. During this period there are no release numbers. When a system is sold, they simply made of copy of the most recently compiled version of the code and that's what was installed at the customer's site. This was the situation when I started to use Unigraphics in 1977.

April 1978: Unigraphics version R1 is released (the 'R' stood for restructured as this was the first significant rewrite of Pat Hanratty's ADAM code which Unigraphics was based on). The code was very poor and not one customer tried using the software in production.

July 1978: Version R2 of Unigraphics is released. It wasn't much better.

October 1978: R3 is released. It was getting better but very few customers put it into production.

March 1979: Finally R4 is released and it proved to be very stable and worked quite well. Virtually everyone put it into production and many customer continued to use it for years.

April 1979: United Computing is shut down and the people and assets are moved to the CAD/CAM division of McAuto (McDonnell Douglas Automation Company) which had beed operating United as subsideary since 1976.

December 1979: McAuto releases Unigraphics D1 (the 'D' stood for double precision).

September 1980: Unigraphics D2 is released.

February 1981: Unigraphics version D2.1 is released. This is first version to run on 32-bit VAX systems from Digital Equipment Company.

September 1981: Unigraphics D2.2 is released. This version supported the 32-bit Data General MV series of mainframes.

November 1981: McAuto releases a completely self-contained single station Unigraphics system which sold for under $100,000 hardware and software combined, the first CAD/CAM offering to break this pricing barrier. Note that while there system had an on-board 25MB hardrive, the actual UG part files were stored on 8-inch 'floppy' discs.

March 1982: McAuto demos to a customer for the first time a prototype of an interactive Solid Modeling system. I performed that demo for Continental Aircraft Company so as to get some feedback as to what they thought of a system like that. This was a prototype using an interface similar to Unigraphics running on a VAX-780 mainframe and using the original PADL-1 code from the University of Rochester.

April 1982: Version D3.0 of Unigraphics is released. This the first version of UG that supported color raster displays. It supported only 7 colors (8 if you included the Black background).

September 1982: Unigraphics D4.0 is released.

May 1983: Unigraphics D4.1 is released. This was the first version of UG to take full advantage of the 32-bit architecture as well as virtual memory. UG was still available on 16-bit DEC and Data General systems.

McAuto also released UniSolids V1.0, the first true interactive Solid Modeling system. It was based on the PADL-2 code and could transfer Solid models to UG as a series of trimmed surfaces. This software was available on 32-bit VAX systems only.

June 1983: The first version UniPCB is released. This system was used to design printed circuit boards and supported multilayer boards and had some early auto-routing tools. You could pass 2D board layouts and UG Schematic connect lists from UG into UniPCB and eventually 3D Solid board assemblies were able to be transferred back, via UniSolids.

August 1983: McAuto releases what was basically a completely new version software called Unigraphics II, V1.0. This was developed to run on 32-bit systems only. It also replaced the serial database with a hierarchical one allowing for development of the first associative capabilities.

September 1983: Version 1.1 of UniSolids is released. This version ran on the 32-bit Data General MV systems.

March 1984: Now known as Unigraphics I, McAuto releases V5.0.

November 1984: Version 2.0 of UniSolids is released. With this version you could transfer 2D profiles from UG to UniSolid which could then be extruded or revolved to create solid models.

March 1985: Unigraphics II V2.0 is released.

August 1985: The last full enhancement release of Unigraphics I, D6.0, is released. It was then moved to a 'mainteance only' status, but was continued to be supported for many years since some customers could not afford to move to 32-bit hardware.

October 1985: Version 3.0 of UniSolids is released.

November 1985: Unigraphics II V3.0 is released. This is the first version of UG which supported shaded displays of 3D surface models, but this required very expensive design stations from Megatek and IBM.

March 1986: Unigraphics II V3.1 is released. This version supported, via some special software, the running of UG from an IBM PC used as a display terminal. The PC still had to be hooked to a mainframe where the UG code was being executed but it allowed the use of cheaper display hardware.

July 1986: Unigraphics II V3.2 is released. This version supported the new DEC VaxStation II/GPX which was the first true standalone 'workstation' that was powerful enough to run software like Unigraphics.

November 1986: Unigraphics II V4.0 is released.

March 1987: Unigraphics II V4.1 is released. This was the first system that supported a license conteol system which allowed us to sell UG in modules. Up until that time, when UG was installed you got everything for a single price based on the maximum number of workstations which could be run simultaneously on the mainframe where UG was installed.

April 1987: McAuto participated in the GM/EDS LTD (Live Test and Demonstration) (AKA 'benchmark') which part of our first significant effort to sell UG to a major automotive OEM (we had sold UG to a couple of truck companies like Navistar and DAF).

August 1987: McAuto launches its first on-line 'forum' where customers could come for help and where they could exchange ideas and solutions to common problems, the BBS, which is still in use today.

October 1987: Version 5.0 of Unigraphics II is released. This is the first version of UG that supported NURB curves and surfaces.

November 1987: GM selects Unigraphics as their primary CAD/CAE/CAM system for all but BIW (Body In White) design (that issue was resolved a couple of years later in a separate internal 'benchmark').

December 1987: Unigraphics II V5.1 is released.

June 1988: Unigraphics II V5.2 is released which was first version of UG to run on UNIX.

November 1988: McDonnell Douglas acquires Shape Data Ltd (Cambridge, UK) the developers of Romulus-D and Parasolid.

December 1988: Unigraphics II V6.0 is released. This released included a product known as UGDD (Unigraphics Detailed Drafting) which was a lower cost seat of UG designed to do 2D drafting tasks. It unique in the it used a tablet interface and depended on the use of a 4-button 'puck', a sort of early mouse.

December 1989: Unigraphics II V7.0 is released which included the new UG/Solids module, the first Solid Modeler integrated into UG and based on the newly acquired Parasolid kernel (note that I was the Product Manager for the UG/Solids project).

March 1991: Unigraphics II V8.0 is released which included a new standalone 'sketcher-based' parametetric modeler called UG/Concept. Similar to UG/Solids in that the models were fully integrated into UG and it's downstream applications, the big difference was that you could create constrained sketches and could drive the solid features by editing 'expressions'.

August 1991: Unigraphics II 8.1 is released.

November 1991: All of the commercial automation business of McDonnell Douglas, which included the Unigraphics division, is acquired by EDS (then part of GM). EDS promptly sold-off, merged or shutdown most everything else except the Unigraphics division which it provided needed fund immediately so that we could deliver the remainder of the software enhancements which we had promised GM in order to win their business and which MDC was no longer interested in funding as they had their own problems to contend with in the aircraft and aerospace businesses.

August 1992: EDS releases Unigraphics II V9.0.

November 1992: EDS demos Unigraphics V10.0 for the first time at AutoFact in Detroit. Note that with this new almost totally reengineered system, we officially dropped the 'II' designation (and avoided calling it 'UG III'). Unigraphics V10.0 delivered dully integrated parametric solid modeling as part of the core modeling version of UG. In other words, everyone got Solid Modeling when they transitioned from UGII, even if they had never purchased UG/Solids or UG/Concept (if they had they got a bit of extra capabilities that the other people had to pay some additional money for).

December 1992: Unigraphics II V9.1 is released. This was the last full enhancement release of UGII and was supported for several years until our customers had virtually all moved to the new UG.

March 1993: The first field testing of Unigraphics V10.0 was started.

October 1993: Unigraphics V10.1 was released and while this was technically the official launch of V10 it was treated by most of our customers as a sort of advanced 'beta' copy of the software.

March 1994: Unigraphics V10.2 was shipped to only those customers who had taken delivery of V10.1 and who specifically requested a copy.

June 1994: EDS releases Unigraphics V10.3 as the first actual supported release and customers finally started to put it into wider production.

February 1995: Version V10.4 of Unigraphics is released. Things were picking up.

May 1995: Unigraphics V10.5 is released.

October 1995: Unigraphics V10.6 is released.

November 1995: EDS announces that they intend to release UG on Windows NT.

January 1996: Unigraphics V11.0 is released. This was when the real transition from UGII picked up real speed. This version introduced the ability to have an imbedded spreadsheet in the part file which could be used to drive the parametric model and supported early optimization capabilities utilizing goal-seek routines.

May 1996: Unigraphics V11.1 is released. This is the first version of UG to run on Windows NT. Note that it still did not have an icon/toolbar type interface, it was still a multi-level, menu-driven system.

January 1997: EDS releases Unigraphics V12.0.

July 1997: Unigraphics V13.0 is released. This included a new sketcher tool as well as the first version to support WAVE.

January 1998: EDS acquires the MCAD business from Intergraph Corporation. This included the mid-range PC-based Solid Edge product.

June 1998: EDS spins-off UGS as a n independent company listed on the NYSE.

November 1998: UGS release Unigraphics V15.0. This is the first version of US which used toolbars and icons. Now while the code was running a true Windows implementation the UI was emulated such that both Windows and UNIX based systems would have a common looking User Interface.

August 1999: UGS acquire Applicon, one of the pioneers in CAD/CAM, who had fallen on hard times.

September 1999: UGS releases Unigraphics V16.0, the first version of UG with a true Windows-based user interface which did not depend on emulating a UNIX like interface. From now on, it would be the Windows look and feel which would be emulated on UNIX systems.

Deecember 1999: UGS becomes the first CAD/CAE/CAM vendor to receive worldwide ISO 9001 certification.

October 2000: UGS releases Unigraphics V17.0.

May 2001: EDS announces their intention to acquire the SDRC company and to eventually merge it with UGS which they still owned the controlling interest in.

July 2001: UGS releases Unigraphics V18.0. Unbeknownst at the time, this was to be the LAST version of software which would carry the Unigraphics name, ending a nearly 30 year run.

October 2001: EDS announces that they intend to not only purchase SDRC, but to also buy back all the publicly held shares of UGS and to form a new division which would merge the SDRC and UGS development and marketing teams into a single company. Also it was announced that the Ideas software would eventually be discontinued and that the major functionality would be moved to a Unigraphics-based architecture and which would form the foundation for a new, as yet unamed, combined product.

July 2002: EDS PLM releases the first version of the new consolidated software known as NX 1.0 (this was really Unigraphics V19.0 with a new name plate).

August 2003: EDS PLM releases NX 2.0.

June 2004: EDS decides to sell the PLM Solutions division to a group of investment bankers for something over $1 billion.

September 2004: The new PLM Solutions company releases NX 3.0.

December 2005: NX 4.0 is released.

March 2007: NX 5.0 is released.

May 2007: PLM Solutions is acquired by Siemens AG, and the Siemens PLM Software division is formed.

June 2008: NX 6.0 is released.

September 2009: NX 7.0 is released.

April 2010: NX 7.5 is released.

September 2011: NX 8.0 is released.

October 2012: NX 8.5 is released.

October 2013: NX 9.0 will be released.

Well that just about does it. It's been a long haul since those United Computing days, but we're still here, going stronger than ever.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[looslib]

A couple of comments on the timeline...

No mention of V14 or V14.1 which added the ability to use sketch dimensions in a drawing. if I remember right.
V14 also addded a new parametric hole interface, but lacked the ability to transfer that information to a drawing.

Early Beta testers after V18 was released did receive the first few copies of the next Beta code marked as V19.


UGS as a public company only lasted a few years. Do you have the IPO price, the buy-back price and high-low range of the stock price?


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[JohnRBaker]

Gee, I missed that one. Unigraphics V14.0 was released early in 1998.

As for the UGS IPO, the closing price on the first day of trading was $14.00 which was also the initial offer price. It never traded all that high, mostly in the high teens and the lower 20's, until EDS decided to repurchase the outstanding shares when they announced the merger of SDRC and UGS into a single new division.

Note that a large number of shares were actually held by employees since UGS management had been issuing grants and options to employees as part of our compensation and as incentives (I had a fair share of these myself). While I can't recall the exact price I know EDS's initial offer was something like $27 but there was an objection to that by management as not being adequate and it finally went to arbitration where it was valued at closer to $32 which is pretty close to what we finally got. Of course, not all our options had vested yet so we only got paid for the fully vested ones and only a percentage of the yet to be vested shares. The rest were converted into EDS options, which in the end were all but worthless due to the financial problems which eventually forced EDS to fire sale the company to a consortium of investment bankers (one of which was Bain Capital) who offered EDS cold hard cash for the UGS Solutions business.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Toost]

Ok, i'm in this thread too. I started late in comparison. June 1990. (McAuto) One of my first assignments was to present the "Whats new in V7 CAD" sessions that we held.

But, John,
You say above that :
May 1996: Unigraphics V11.1 is released. This is the first version of UG to run on Windows NT. Note that it still did not have an icon/toolbar type interface, it was still a multi-level, menu-driven system.

Is this true ?, Didn't the icons appear with V10.0, in that large palette to the left on the screen ?

Anybody got a screenshot of V10.0 ? - I have searched the UG/NX museum but no luck.

Regards,
Tomas

 

[JohnRBaker]

We never really called it a toolbar nor even icons, although in retrospect it did portend what was to come. In reality, it was simply a sort of graphical representation of the old PFK (AKA 'button box').

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[joycejo]

John,
Your making me feel old! I started using UG-I in May of 1984 as an NC Programmer. Got laid off 2 years later was out of work for a whole week. Started using UG-II and stayed with the same company for 12 years. Went into consulting and training at Cadpo usng V9 and learning to use V10. Left there after 15+ years and now back in the “real” world using NX7.5 and NX8.5

One funny story The Company I was working at in the 90’s went from Techtronic workstations with the good old PFK boxes to regular workstations, Digital Equipment machines. About a year after the transition was complete our IT manager called all the users together. He brought us out to the shipping dock and we each got to slide one of the old Techtronic workstations into a dumpster. He could not give them away.



John Joyce
N.C. Programming Supervisor
Barnes Aerospace, Windsor CT
NX6, NX7.5 & NX8.5
Vericut7.2.3

 

[capnhook]

Spaceballs used to be pretty expensive when they came out, and we damn modelmakers weren't worthy of one, just the design crew.

We all used to volunteer to work the night shift, not just for the premium pay, but because we could go out and swipe and use the designers' spaceballs on our tubes while they were away...!

Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community..

[green]To the Toolmaker, your nice little cartoon drawing of your glass looks cool, but your solid model sucks. Do you want me to fix it, or are you going to take all week to get it back to me so I can get some work done?[/green]

 

[JohnRBaker]

I've thought of trying to find an old Tektronix 4014 and having it 'bronzed' and set-up in the lobby here in Cypress. I've got a PFK and message monitor, all I need is the terminal and a pair of those funky 'swept wing' work tables and the green Steelcase chair that was included with each 'Unigraphics Model 319 Workstation', the official name of this configuration, depicted below in the pages from a document provided to new customers when they purchased a Unigraphics system so that they could properly plan their facility layout (and yes, it was drawn using UG):

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, for those of you who asked for "more videos", here's a couple from a more recent era.

The first is a video which we were handing out at the 1990 AUTOFACT in Detroit (we had finally moved beyond 16mm films). This one was done while we were still part of McDonnell Douglas and was included with the marketing collateral that went with the announcement of Unigraphics II V8.0, which was officially released the following Spring. Note that I now had a speaking part in this production, as opposed to being just an 'extra' in the 1982 film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIxVoCxy_DY

And here's a video from the EDS era, released in 1996. You may notice that with EDS the marketing message was a bit more aggressive and in-your-face, particularly when it came to calling-out the competition, something that we would have never done while we were part of the McDonnell Douglas family (you just didn't do that sort of thing):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01yTblR71s

Again, enjoy...

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[kapmnit123]

Hi John,
Congratulations to you. Given the vast years of experience you and other experts have on NX i don't think it would make any sense to divulge mine .
Although i think i am too late to post any comment on this post but wishes never fade with time.
Happy to be back (may be) on forum after a long gap.
Best Regards
Kapil Sharma

 

[Rich944]

Great post John,

Makes me think of how many iconic products have been designed on Unigraphics/NX over the years. I recall seeing a drawing of the original ipod with a reference to Unigraphics on the border.

Many thanks for all you help over the years!

Rich

 

[jerry1423]

I miss the PFK keys.
I don't see why they can't bring something like that back. Each key could be custom assigned by the user.

 

[multicaduser]

Can't forget the pfk myself, it allowed you key in commands then go for a cup of coffee while the other seven users were brought to their knees by whatever you started. LOL DEC PDP 11 with eight users and a whopping 80 meg of disk space. Don't remember what it did but 7-7-3-4-5 still sticks in my head decades after the last time I used one.

 

[jerry1423]

7-2-2-1-2
was trim curve to a point (I think) . . . or trim curve to something

 

[JohnRBaker]

When I was taking that first Unigraphics class back in 1977 the instructor warned us about keying ahead too many commands. I think the limit at the time was something like 14 button pushes (this included keyboard entries as well as PFK commands). Now as someone just learning UG and not really familiar with computers or a PFK, this sounded a bit crazy but it only took a few months before this suddenly started to be a real pain in the neck (if not in some other body parts as well). In those very early versions of UG if you did manage to hit the buffer limit of 14 entries the system would stop taking your inputs and you'd have to wait until the entire buffer had emptied before you could start hitting the keys/buttons again. The biggest problem was that you didn't know the limit had been reached and you would lose everything entered after the system stopped taking your commands, which of course was not noticed until it was too late to do anything about it. When the restructured version of UG was released in 1978 this problem had been addressed when the buffer became much larger and more dynamic, meaning that if you managed to pace yourself you could stay ahead just about as many commands/entries as your skill level would permit. Of course, as the CPU's got faster this became a non-issue and eventually people forgot about it altogether.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[markrief]

Old CAMsters knew 9-1-1-2-1 before every coffee break. File the part and CLS.

Mark Rief
Product Manager
Siemens PLM