Saturday, May 22, 2010, 09:00 pm

AutoCAD appears headed back to the Mac

By Prince McLean

After an 18 year hiatus, AutoCAD appears to be headed back to the Mac platform, according to screen shots of a new beta posted on an Italian Mac forum.

The screen shots, appearing on Italiamac depict the installation screens and interface for an upcoming Autodesk AutoCAD 64-bit early beta release for Mac OS X called "Sledgehammer."

The last time Autodesk's AutoCAD drafting software was made available for the Mac was in 1992, with Release 12. The current 2011 version, available only for Windows, is designated Release 25.

Earlier this spring, the French Mac site Hardmac reported references to Mac OS X in Autodesk's ObjectARX SDK (The Object AutoCAD Runtime Extension is an extension mechanism for customizing the application) and offered a confirmation of previous rumors that a private beta release of AutoCAD for the Mac was being prepared.