Today, 02 November 2018 marks the 25th anniversary of the initial release of AutoCAD LT. The press release was issued on this date for the new “low-cost windows CAD package”. AutoCAD LT retail price in 1993 was US$495 for a perpetual license, compared to today where the cost is $390/year annual rental fee (or $50/month for shorter term usage). The first AutoCAD LT ran on 386/486 and Pentium processors, on Windows 3.1 or higher, with a minimum of 4MB (yes megabytes) of RAM. Autodesk also announced AutoSketch Release 2 for Windows on this date in a separate announcement, but it was ultimately killed off in 2008.
One final note on this press release, you could at the time, contact Autodesk by typing in GO ADESK on CompuServe®
@GlynCash has some nice images to take us back to 1993
Engineering Technology Flashback #1 – AutoCAD LT in the 1990's https://t.co/4xYbiypQvR#CAD #VR #Engineering #technology pic.twitter.com/OFRvBBKpzj
— Glyn C (@GlynCash) October 14, 2018
Nice, the first AutoCAD I purchased!