the list...

I have two things to say about the list:

1) If I understand correctly (and I did not until today) the purpose
of the list is to discuss the construction and setup of types of
equipment listed in the topics. I guess pure usuage was not included.
However I believe that design and setup needs to include those aspects
of usage that impact the design and setup - ie, someone designing a
router needs to have some idea of cutting forces and speeds, someone
doinng a cnc lathe conversion needs to decide if they will keep the
leadscrew for threading or implement it electronically.

2) A lot of the volume of mail is made up of repeate questions and
answers. Occasionally someone is referred to the archives. Recently,
I've found that seaching the archives is nearly impossibly slow,
especially due to the way it only searches a few months at a time. I
think we need to try to release the archives somewhere independently
of yahoogroups with a fast search tool. The problem of course is
how to distribute these huge files - CD roms would be nice,
but how to do we update them, and how do we get one quickly
to a newbie who wants answers today?

I know the archives are up at linuxcnc at a hidden link listed in a
visible text file, but these only seem to go to last year. Maybe
this, coupled with a tool that downloads them in monthly chunks and
adds to a users local archive?

The alternative of course is to spend a lot of time pooling our
collective knowledge and writing up a giant FAQ for the list,
so that people won't have to search the archives for everything.

Chris Stratton

-------------------------------------------------
Christopher C. Stratton
Engineer, Instrument Maker, and Horn Player
ccs@... 617 628 1062
http://web.mit.edu/~stratton/www/brassbuild.html