The Engineering Design Revolution
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Engineering Design Revolution
| Full title | The Engineering Design Revolution: The People, Companies and Computer Systems That Changed Forever the Practice of Engineering |
|---|---|
| Author | David E. Weisberg |
| Published | 2008 |
| Pages | 650 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Weisberg was inside the CAD industry as it formed and wrote its history — from numerical-control tooling at MIT in the 1940s through Computervision, Applicon, Autodesk, Parametric and the rest. The definitive account of an industry almost nobody has written about. |
Where I heard about it
- @WillManidis’s thread — a reply to his question “what is the single best book you can read that will explain an entire industry?” in the thread, June 2025. The full list of replies lives on what is the single best book… (tweet).
About this edition
The book was never conventionally published: Weisberg released it as a free PDF at cadhistory.net, asking for voluntary donations to the Cancer League of Colorado. An Amazon search will mostly find scans and reprints — the author’s own site is the real source.
Connections
- Engineering — the practice CAD changed.
- Design — the tools that made computer-aided design a discipline.
- Technological Innovation — sixty years of one toolchain’s history in one place.
- Open Source Knowledge — a 650-page industry history given away for free is the pattern this tag is for.
- what is the single best book… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.