I think the o.p.'s question bears more toward how the transition came about. The use of computer aided drafting/design (CAD) started primarily in the aerospace and automotive industries in the early 'Sixties, with companies developing internal drafting codes and tools in conjunction with hardware manufacturers. These originally used mainframe computers with ‘advanced’ dumb terminals, and the drafting was performed with a combination of typed commands, a panel of dials (think of a Pong controller multiplied by a dozen), sometimes using a light stylus or other primitive GUI input tool. Because of the cost of the station and expense in training, these were generally implemented on a by-project basis, usually for programs that were small in scope, while the rest of the company continued to draft on vellum with graphic pencil or ink.
As standalone workstations became more powerful in the 'Seventies, the use of CAD became more widespread both in the above industries and in other areas, like civil construction and architecture. However, engineers and draftsmen/designers still kept drafting tables both to modify existing drawings and because they were a useful work surface for handling large plotted CAD drawings for checking. Many times for smaller projects or modifications to existing designs it was just easier to spend a day ginning up a hand drawing rather than trying to make a fairly clunky CAD system generate a working print. However, making major changes to a CAD drawing was far easier than having to redraw an entire part and dimensions on vellum, analogous to the difference between writing a paper on a word processor and typing it on a typewriter.
In the 'Eighties, CAD became nearly ubiquitous as workstations became cheaper, viable wireframe 2D CAD programs became available for the less expensive personal computer, and the software itself became more user friendly. Although AutoCAD, mentioned by the previous poster, became very popular (in part because the company had the foresight to provide it to high schools and colleges at low or no cost, ensuring familiarity) it was by no means the only choice; I personally learned to use half a dozen CAD systems on both the PC and Unix workstations. Many companies would maintain two or three different and completely incompatible systems as preferred by individual managers or programs. It was at this point that drafting tables, which take up an enormous amount of space, started to disappear from individual workspaces and instead became common shared work items. Tables and the expensive hardware attached to them for formerly high tech drafting were sold for pocket change or given away just to get them out of the office.
By the 'Nineties, the drafting table was an anachronism. Nearly all new drafting was done on computer, and most systems were now capable of 3D wireframe, with many able to render surfaces or solid primitives. For mechanical drafting, parametric modeling, using complex solids and relational dimensioning (such that changing one dimension will update other dimensions that are subservient) started to come into vogue. Drafting tables were no longer just an anachronism; they were completely unnecessary except for handling older drawings. In addition to facilitating the production of detail drawings, it also became possible to export the design geometry directly to other analysis programs for finite element analysis or computational fluid simulation. While in theory this made the design process faster, what it really did is let the analyst make more detailed predictions.
The technology of computer aided design has only improved incrementally since then; the analysis tools are markedly better, but the drafting and design software is still at the same basic functionality with modest enhancements. The major focus in the last decade has been to improve design automation and “enterprise wide integration”, with questionable effect. The next up and coming thing in CAD is the ability to handle the models "directly by virtual simulation, as you see Tony Stark designing the Iron Man suit. Such technology is still a good eight to ten years from being ready for production use.
I haven’t seen a working drawing board in years; whatever may have remained past the 'Eighties was likely junked when companies made cubical workspaces smaller and smaller to cram more [del]livestock[/del] workers into a workspace. I couldn’t even fit a full sized drafting board into my office today, and on the rare occasions that we need to go over a full-sized D or E drawing we have to take over a conference room and use the table.
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