getting started in CAD/CAM

Hi all, just found this group.

I am just finishing up converting a Shizuoka bed mill to run EMC. My
previous experience with cnc has been a converted sherline (the 5HP
motor on this mill weighs more than the whole sherline :-) ).

Anyway, I mostly ran autocad plot files on my sherline using some
software my wife wrote (she is the software engineer, I am the EE).
I now find myself needing a toolpath generator (g-code) and possibly
a CAD program (if autocad will not cut it).

I know about the recent sale on rhino/visual mill, and while $1500
seems very very reasonable for that package, I would have nothing
left for tooling.

Are there any CAM packages out there that are open source, or that
people who use EMC on here would naturally gravitate towards? Am I
stuck with notepad?

I did a search through old posts, at least as far back as I could
stand (yahoo is slooooow). Nothing really popped out as being dirt
cheap or free. There was something called Dolphin, but it seems the
same price as visualmill is now.

Thanks,

Rick