Waht does open mean? was Re: Indexer LPT (IX)

Chris,

Sounds like you have had similar experience to mine with IX, HPIX,
etc. So why wasn't/isn't it mentioned/used more?

1) Its a pretty nice program, but you either had to pay a lot for the
hpgl front-end from ability(hpix), or Crawfords' "tool" mentioned in
my last post, or "cnc117", or someone elses "front-end"; or you had
to have the ability to write your own. As many discover, this is
harder than it looks.

2) Cost, relative to more recent offerings. Whether we want to admit
it or not; for most things price beats features. Especially
if "enough" functionality is provided for a "cheap enough" price.
Others making their products plug and go, compared to the more
involved setup issues of IX. Indexer with hpgl was 450 bucks ten
years ago. Now its 700 for IXwin and gcode. The price is fair,IMO,
but it's more than many will pay...

3) Positioning in the marketplace. Art V has advertised for years in
electronics mags, while flashcut and others are in metalworking mags.
For years, he has been asked to make something for gcode, but has
chosen to stick with the factory/lab automation market; accepting cnc
type customers on an "as they come" basis.

4) Those d#$% non-standard cables and multiple p-ports! Say what you
want, most people are afraid of wiring. and when there are other
(albeit, not as high performance, or capabilities) programs which "do
it all" with ONE printer cable for FOUR axes, again simplicity wins.

Lastly, Ability has had a "take it or leave it attitude", which many
find uncomfortable, compared to "I'll try to do that for you" that
others were/are offering... (And the bitter taste of the Digital Tool
episode is still apparent, IMO).

Almost forgot. When computers were not as cheaply available (so we
didn't have scads lying around), the fact that the system clock
stopped during motion (and wasn't automatically updated) meant that
if we had one computer which sometimes ran indexer, its' time/date
was always off...

I'm looking forward to see how the Gcode program performs. But IMO,
Ability HAS to listen to and RESPOND to their customers requests, or
they will be eaten by the growing competition.

Hope this helps.

Ballendo

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., Chris L <datac@l...> wrote:
> Oh,
>
> I wanted to add that until Ability finally came out with the new
windows G-code interface, it was an "open" market for anyone to make
an interface. Some have made different things but they have been DOS.
If you are into
> programming, I don't see how it could have been that hard to do in
that you simply need to translate G-Code to the correct language.
>
> One item not applied into the program is backlash comp. I had a
very interesting discussion (actually a listening session) With Art
as to why it is not implimented. He made very clear to me he will be
adding it, but, that it
> is not just a matter of "if you have X amount of Slop in a machine,
just add or subtract steps". His programs capability of multi axis
moves would take some time to really make backlash work correctly and
he does not want to
> just install a lesser technique. So, In the meantime, Why not build
a machine without backlash !
>
> I think it is still possible to purchase the two parts of the
program separate. Because of the way this TSR control works, I'm sure
many will point out that it is not "realtime" in the common sense.
About the only thing I can
> think of that some would miss Is the constant update of location
though it runs by so fast who can really figure it out? Then again, I
run a Router and it moves a bit faster than a mill. The program will
only update when you
> pause or stop motion. When a control works good, I guess this would
not bother me.
>
> I'd be curious to hear from the "open" control guys if this is or
is not open. I know some actually ran this thing out of an excel
spreadsheet to create code. Sounds kinda "open" to me.........
>
> One really important thing to remember if you hang it on a driver,
is that it uses a negative trigger to change "step". If your set
wrong, you will lose steps in a most calculable way.
>
> Chris L
>
> Art Fenerty wrote:
>
> > Hi All:
> >
> > I was just reading the Indexer LPT site. Does anyone here have
experience with it. Is it a software only solution which runs at
90,000 pulses per second? How do you find it runs? How is it's
constant velocity contouring?
> > Is it a driver that loads prior to windows? Sounds like a
great solution, I'd like to hear about its performance if anyone has
driven it.
> >
> > Art
> > Master5 Software
> > http://users.andara.com/~fenerty/master.htm
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
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