The saga of my software quest...

Well, I just burned up about 30 hours downloading and running evals
on a bunch of CNC/CAM software. I got programs from all over the WEB
including one from India and another from Switzerland! I was
determined to find a program or programs that ran and satisfied my
preverse desire to run my CNC stuff in Windows. I did not rule out
DOS based programs but my desire was to stay 100% "GUIE" if
possible. Price was a consideration but as long as the total was
below a kilobuck I kept it in the hat for eval. I did not spend any
time on the EMC software...a lot of you guys are already doing that
and I can just sit back and read your stories. Some of the available
programs have no eval available so didn't get considered. Some of
the higher priced offerings were the most disappointing. I made
notes about each one. I wanted a package that did not require me to
spend a lot of time slogging around in g-code editors. I have better
things to do with my time than g0 back and start programming in NC
code! (like waste 30 hours doing evals).

My interest was in 3 axis (2 1/2 in some views) milling type programs
I could use on my yet to be completed Plasma machine. I did not eval
any lathe programs.

For those of you that are starting out in the CNC world and would
like my decidedly biased views on the best software, then I am
considering writing a "tell all" report and making it available for
download. I'm sure it will start some heated threads. If enough of
you say "do it" then I WILL! Maybe it will prompt some of the really
lame programs to take a look at what they offer. I've spent the last
4 years of my life having people tell me what was wrong or missing in
my programs...now I get to do it to someone else.