Masterdrain first saw the light of day in the early 1980's. It existed then as a DOS program (remember MSDOS 3.1?), but even in its early days, it gave full hydraulic data for a drainage system, including proportional velocities and flows, and hydraulic mean depth. If you have a copy of the 1988 Institute of Plumbing Engineering Services Design Guide, you will see a printout of this version on page p102. This program was also used as a basis of a lecture to the American Society of Plumbing Engineers in 1986 on 'Computers in Plumbing Design'.
In this early version, the Bilham formula was used to calculate rainfall intensities, but following the publication of the Wallingford procedure, rainfall intensities were calculated using the Modified Rational Method. .
The code has been updated over the years, from Dos to Windows 3.1, and then to 32 bit operating systems - Win95/8 to Win2000 / XP.
The version number reflects these changes - for version 7.40, the seven represents major changes, such as a new group of functions on the menu bar, the four is incremented with minor changes such as a new function on a drop-down menu bar. The zero is incremented with minor changes to the code.
The program is under constant development to increase the functions available, and to decrease the learning curve. Many of the functions have been suggested by engineers that have used this program, and further suggestions or comments are welcomed.