Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: xp cnc software

On Monday 23 August 2004 03:37 pm, caudlet wrote:

(It took me a little while to catch that you were quoting me here... :-)

> > You've got me curious when you talk about the features. But I
> > don't run with either of those platforms here, is that info still
> > available in a doc file or something, what it'll do?

> download the manual from the www.artofcnc.ca website. Spend a few
> evenings looking over the features. Maybe by the time you have that
> digested the new manual with even more features will be finished.

I did download that. Unfortunately it ended up in "the pile" which has grown
rather large lately, and which I really do need to start to do something
with before too much longer...

> > > For a low cost CAM program for Windows download the free beta of
> > > Sheetcam at www.sheetcam.com

> > I know that there are a lot of windows machines out there, but...

> > > If you intend on using your XP computer to control your machine,
> > > consider having a dedicated box for just that and network it to your
> > > design PC(s).

> > This strikes me as something that's a good idea anyway, no matter
> > what the platform. Particularly if you're running something that allows
> > for the use of somewhat older hardware.

> > > While in theory you can use the same box for everything, a dedicated box
> > > is less problematic. MACH2 will run easily on a 900 or 1 Ghz
> > > machine and there are reports of people using 500 mhz ones.

> > That's part of the problem. I don't believe in being right up there on
> > the bleeding edge, and in recent years I've not even tried to stay
> > anywhere near current.

> a 1 gig machine could not be considered current or even trailing-edge
> technology. I bought my 900 mhz mother baord and chip over a 16
> months ago for 49.00 bucks. At the time the 1.8 was the leading
> edge.

All of this is still way faster than anything I have here. The box I'm typing
at now is a Celeron 366. I also have a P-II 450 that will get used as soon
as I get another ATX case to put it in (got plenty of AT cases though). The
box the mail lives on is a K6-200. And I have lots of other stuff that's
even older yet...

> You have to view computers in "dog" years (7:1) in comparison with other
> machinery.

I just don't see throwing away perfectly good hardware when I can maybe find
some good use for it.

> I work for a large manufacturing company that tries to squeeze every drop
> out of capital equipment. Heck, I think they amortorize pencils! They have
> some shop equipment that is over 20 years old. They still have a few 300 and
> 500 mhz pentium machines left. When it comes time to dispose of them we
> have to PAY a scrap dealer to haul them off. Seems there are hazardous
> materials (lead in the monitors) and you can't just toss them.

Yeah, I'd heard that about monitors. It being attached to the faceplate of
the CRT, I doubt that there are really any environmental issues to contend
with there, glass being pretty inert stuff. Another one for the greenies...

> Maybe we could find a person like yourself to haul off the two or three
> truck loads a month (just kidding).

I'd be into it, if I had a place to store it. But you're probably too far
away from me to make that practical. I don't know how to find companies that
are doing something of the sort around here.

> Even the case and power supplies are worthless since none of the new
> motherboards will work with them.

Oh? Are we talking AT vs. ATX or have they gone further with that?

> While there are several options in the software controller side for DOS and
> LINUX the list gets a lot smaller when you look and CAD and CAM options.
> Unless you are into personal pain, doing CAD or CAM layout using a
> DOS computer is not an option. Yes, you can get an old version of
> MasterCAM that runs in DOS (the Windows version is not much
> different) but once again the pain level is high.

What's so different about it?

> > All of those numbers you mention are faster than anything I have on
> > hand here. The box I'm typing on right now is a Celeron 366,
> > while the "server" the mail lives on is a K6-200! I'm sure that some
> > nontrivial amount of that requirement is the overhead created by the
> > windows operating system, which seems to get more bloated with each
> > release. Windows 3.1 could be installed from a handful of floppies, and
> > I don't know that anything that's been added to the software since then
> > has added much that we'd want for a machine controller. I wonder if any
> > of these packages that are windows-only these days have any earlier
> > versions out there that would run on earlier stuff? Even if unsupported
> > that wouldn't be a bad thing.

> The sad part is that most software (like mastercam) is bound by licensing
> that will not let you legally sell an old version you have used to upgrade
> from so unless you can find one where they never upgraded or never used it
> then a copy will be hard to come by.

Yeah, stuff like that is pretty sad, all right. One of the reasons I've
largely turned away from all that and have focused more on linux.

> > > I use a 900MHZ AMD unit that was setting in a corner.

> > Whew!

> When brand new 2.4 G motherboards and chips are selling at Fry's for
> 79.95 it makes the value of a slower machine even less.

It's nice to see the prices of new MBs under $100, but that's still $79.95
that I don't have, and could use for other stuff if I did have it. And it
has its own costs, like needing newer and faster RAM, ATX cases, and such
stuff. I don't think we have fry's around here any place, either.

> > > I use WIN2000 (that's just me and my choice, since I REALLY
> > > don't like XP) and never have problems.

> > I've just accumulated a number of 486 boxes as "computer junk" and
> > am wondering whether any of this stuff might be of use in this
> > context. I don't see why not, though I haven't begun to explore the
> > software just yet. Back when I was running mostly DOS I had no problems
> > with logically-done software that wasn't graphical, but presented the
> > info the user needed in boxes on the screen anyhow.

> You would love MasterCAM. They had logic boxes to the end of the
> earth. It could take a week just to come back from a deep traverse
> of the menu system!

Heh.

> > Not much has changed since then except for all the bells and whistles that
> > I don't see a need for anyhow, and of course billyboy's bank
> > account... :-)

> Actually there has been a LOT of changes. Just getting a DOS computer to
> run on a network used to be a 4 hour job (if you were experienced and
> lucky).

Hm. Good point. I am still fiddling with that aspect of things, though I do
have that capability currently on the one dos box that's running here. I
didn't get that much into networking stuff until around the time I started
with linux (about 5 years back) so I guess I got lucky in that respect. It's
been relatively painless overall.

> Then there were the multitudes of proprietary file formats

So using the moving target of m$ file formats is better how? :-)

> and each software vendor had to write their own printer drivers....

Yep. But I've gone for quite a while now with no functional printer here that
was hooked up to anything, only wanting to change it recently, which is
still in process.

> what a nightmare THAT was. You had to run one program at a time and nothing
> talked to anything else.

On my dos/desqview box I *still* can do cut-and-paste, only dv calls it "mark
and transfer". Works. :-)

Stuff talking to other stuff is easy enough if what you want to send/receive
is text.

> The concept of a "clipboard" was considered space-age. Networks ran at
> 10mhz or lower for the old arcnet and token ring.

Got some of those boards too, though my current setup is ethernet -- at 10
MHz.

> Then you had to try and get access to upper memory so you could have enough
> conventional memory to run the programs.
>
> Has Windows turned into a bloated mess? Absolutely. I hate XP with all of
> it's "smart" features and taking control away from the user.

That sort of thing bugs me too, and the ability to have any degree of control
that you want to deal with is one of the things I rather like about linux.
Sure it's more work, but...

> In order for a software company to stay in business they need to keep
> adding features so they can have a new release and get more money.

Maybe. Free software seems to be headed in that direction too though and in
fact I'm seeing a bit of "feature bloat" that I don't want in some of that
stuff. the difference being that if I really wanted to I could do something
about it. And that there are a heck of a lot more alternatives out there to
choose from.

> Sometimes the "features" are just bug fixes and more often they are
> just lipstick on a pig, but the public demands it.

Some part of the public maybe. I believe that about at the same level I
believe the public really wants to watch most of the crap that's on TV these
days. :-)

> I am real appreciative of the people like the guys that did the EMC piece,
> and people like Mariss, Art and more recently Les (at sheetcam) for their
> vision to take a old technology and apply modern approaches that allow us
> hobby guys to be able to afford to build machines that were 6 figures a few
> years ago.

Yes!

> I worked on CNC equipment back in the 80's and it was out of the question
> for an individual to own their own piece of CNC gear. You had to run those
> machines two or three shifts to make them pay for themselves. Shops
> had to take out loans to buy a mill with a papertape or mag tape reader and
> all of the coding in g-code was done by hand.

I remember encountering some of that stuff. I got called in to do a repair
once on a machine where the "diagrams" given with it were big piles of OR
gates but the actual "logic" on the board was nothing but discrete
transistors. A board swap was the only way to fix that one. The guy who had
that shop (now gone) had paid something like $150K for it, and it wasn't
even a particularly large mill compared to some of the stuff that I've seen
out there.