RE: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Driving the parallel port in WindowXP

> -----Original Message-----
> From: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Sebastien Bailard - Dubsen
> Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 4:33 PM
>
> What kind of application are you thinking of writing? Is it
> something that
> would be useful to build into emc? There are a fairly large
> number of people
> using it, I think, and it has an active developer community,
> so if you add
> your code to emc, more people may end up using it.
>
> -Sebastien Bailard

Sebastian,

Thanks for the input. EMC looks like the right way to go, but I just
don't see that many robust CAD programs for Linux. I don't want to use
two machines or do a dual boot setup. Maybe I just haven't searched
enough yet. What do most people use in Linux?

My main purpose is to design a CAD application that simplifies the whole
design process for simple operations. For example, if I want a quarter
circle milled, I just want to be able to position to cutter at the
center and tell the software "cut a quarter circle with a diameter of X
here". One of the problem I see with current CNC software is that it
takes a just as long to do something real simple as it would take to do
something more complicated.

I also wanted to write a visual, easy to use rotary table driver to make
gear cutting, etc. simple and fool proof.

Lastly, I own the rights to a product called the Frog, which is a simple
single axis programmable controller which also supports thread cutting.
I'm thinking of porting this with a good UI to a PC based system
(Windows or Linux) and expand it to support more axis. It may become the
basis for a "simple CNC language". I'm just kind of thinking out load.

Lester pointed me to Mach, and I can't tell if it is Linux or Windows
based, and if it has any CAD capabilities. I may fire off an e-mail to
them.

Lastly, which vendor to you recommend of off-the-self multi-axis driver
and power supply already assembled in an enclosure?

Thanks,
Kory