RE: DOS/EMC aka DeskNCrt now freely available

Hi Ray,

I was just going to ask How I could get a CD from NAMES. Can you put me
on the list for the BDI disk? Where might I find the "equipment list"
for BDI? I've got a viper graphics board that doesn't like windows
much. I also have a pair of 500 Mb (don't laugh) SCSI drives that I
need to get the information off, if I'm to use this old 180Mb Pentium
system.

Alan KM6VV


Ray wrote:

>
> From: Randy Gordon-Gilmore <zephyrus@...>
> <s>
> >Do you have a DOS/Windows background and can tell me how much effort is
> >involved in learning Linux and getting it and EMC up and running? I
> >haven't seriously thought about it at all yet.
>
> I have a little experience with DOS and MS Windows and a bit of Unix. It
> took me a couple of days to get Tim's script and all the downloads and
> successfully compile a system that worked. Compiling sounds like a
> terrifying activity but it really isn't that bad. My only programming
> experience was Fortran in the 60' and a bit of basic when it became
> available on a DEC-PDP10 machine.
>
> It is more difficult to migrate from MS Windows to Linux than from DOS to
> linux because with Linux you will often use terminals and command lines.
> They are just faster than clicking an X-Windows icon or finding a menu item
> three deep in a K (start) menu. (And some folk think that MS copyrighted
> windows. Only MS Windows with the frilly s***.)
>
> With the EMC, you can get a lot of debug information by watching the
> messages in a terminal window. Yes the commands are a bit different -- ls
> rather than dir and such but these can be learned a few at a time. When I
> started with it in the basement, I wrote the commands on the wall with a
> felt tip.
>
> And X-Windows is getting stronger all the time. X uses window managers
> to create most of the visual environment that MS Windows users are
> accustomed to. And you are able to select from many different managers and
> many different themes. Not just the ones that someone in western Washington
> State thinks you should be able to select.
>
> Now, the clincher is that in one month, at NAMES, Paul will unveil the BDI
> install. The Beta that I tested here installed here on a Cyrix 300 with a
> 420 Mb hard drive in about 10 minutes. There were just a few questions
> up front about the kind of language you wanted to install, the keyboard, the
> location, the kind of mouse and monitor. (It correctly found all of my
> stuff) After a reboot at the end, the BDI came up using real-time linux
> and the KDE desktop with EMC icons on it. This release will cost less than
> a small family visit to a fast food place. I had about 80 Mb left over for
> those huge contouring programs.
>
> After that install, I copied over my run and ini file from the the PC that
> runs my mill, moved the parport cable, added an icon and had my minimill
> running in less than 10 minutes more.
>
> If you are content to know nothing about Linus and Linux the BDI is the
> way to get it. For those who have been typing impaired by that other
> windows environment, it can all be done visually, including the install.
>
> The BDI is based on Linux 2.2.17 and rtlinux 2.3. These are not the latest
> and greatest releases but they are way ahead of RH 5.2 -- the last really
> stable install. (I sound like a f****** ???? salesman) But I'm not done
> yet because Paul has included the linuxcnc.org handbook and a Tcl/Tk
> program that uses the math routines that Jon E has on his web page to write
> G-code programs. Lawrence and Matt have added a few routines
> for things like a text writer, bezel engraver, and a speaker grill drilling
> routine that in thirty seconds will write thousands of lines of code and
> take hours to run. (BIG speakers) Both of these extra programs can be
> accessed from the X-Windows screen and are essentially visual rather than
> text oriented.
>
> With BDI you can begin to use the EMC almost immediately and only know
> where the CDROM insert button is and how to get your PC to boot to CDROM
> first.
>
> Then you can begin to learn and experiment while the machine is making
> chips because Linus has insisted that Linux be a real multiuser OS. And
> you will discover that you have a motion system, the EMC, that is capable
> of running anything from a Cartesian minimill with steppers, a six axis
> servo driven mill, a robot, a hexapod, lawn mower, family Humvee, or
> a model airplane.
>
> Disclaimer: I hope to become the US warehouse and shipping point for the
> BDI and stand to make about as much profit on it as I have on the rest of
> my EMC ramblings over the last two years!
>
> </rant>
> Ray