New Member w/couple of questions

Greetings:

I am a relatively new member to CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO that signed
up a couple of weeks ago. I have been lurking for a while
to get the hang of how the group works before making this,
my first post.

I have an old Sherline that was purchased from Sears back
in the late 70's. I have converted it to CNC once, but
I am not very happy with the result and intend to redo
the electronics and some of the mechanics.

I have browsed around the files and links section of the
CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO web site looking for as many examples
as I can find. In addition, I've search the archives
for "open hardware" without much success. Are there
any CNC electronics examples that I should be looking
at that the above strategy would have missed?

For me, doing electronics projects like building CNC
stepper motor drivers is fun. My next shot at CNC
electronics is likely to be based on using an L298
for each stepper motor. Rather than use an L297 for
the controller, I intend to use a less expensive
Microchip PIC16C505 ($US1.26 for 25 from Digikey)
that is programmed to do the same tasks as the L297.

I notice that the pin-outs for the EMC parallel port
are quite well defined. Is there another "defacto
standard" for cable that connects the stepper
controller to the stepper motor?

Any additional information is appreciated.

Thanks,

-Wayne