What CAD packages ran on Prime?
The Prime 300, 400 and early 50 Series machines provided an excellent development platform for Fortran IV applications requiring high performance floating point arithmetic. Hence, Prime systems were chosen by many CAD/CAM software companies (especially in the United Kingdom). These included CAD Centre, Compeda, Cambridge Interactive Systems (CIS), GMW and many others. In the early 1980’s Prime acquired exclusive marketing rights to the Medusa product from CIS. However, this arrangement was restricted to North America and, for several years Prime was very frustrated that they could not sell Medusa in Europe etc. A team was sent from Prime Park to the UK to buy CIS. Unfortunately, due to a minor glitch in communications, the team returned as proud owners of Compeda (another CAD software house which had been owned by the UK Government). That gave Prime one or two extra products including the Plant Design Management System (PDMS), Sammie (an interesting ergonomics program but a commercial
