Re: parallel port finally obsolete?

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Tom" <thom@...> wrote:

> There are lots of solutions. (unlike 8 years ago) In some ways it just confuses the market.

Well, that may be my answer right there. Perhaps I was caught up in the excitement a few years ago when Marriss was developing what looked to be a be-all, end-all black box, that in its simplest form promised to be plug-and-play. Unfortunately, that particular approach proved to be unachievable. However, it for a while held out the prospect of being a market dominator like Geckodrives, eliminating the head-spinning difficulty of sorting out the pros & cons of all the other competing hardware & software.

Being a Mac person (sissy?), I have been holding out for a Mac-like (not necessarily Mac-based, although that would be nice) integrated hardware/software solution that was a stand-out choice. Perhaps FlashCut comes closest, but is not in my budget range.

Those of you who are up to your elbows in CNC may not recognize that Art's solution to the limitations of Windows looks to an outsider like a temporary kludge, surely to be superseded anytime now. EMC/Linux is great if you have the time and inclination to overcome the learning curve. DOS-based approaches look prehistoric.

On the hardware front, as Tom observed, the variety of offerings can present a dilemma, as much as opportunity. Is there somewhere a matrix (spreadsheet?) that organizes the field into some kind of discernible order? You might think that Digital Machinist mag would have undertaken such a project, but they may be wary of offending advertisers, or it maybe simply outside their capabilities.

Lacking the time or depth of knowledge to sort out all the options, as I referenced earlier, I have been waiting and hoping for the field to coalesce around a consensus approach. For better or worse, the opposite seems to have happened.

I could go on, but either you get my point now, or you just feel that I am stupid and hopeless. Probably Tom was closest to the mark in inferring that the problem for people like me is too many choices, no clear best approach, and no way to get a comprehensive grip on the pros & cons of the alternatives. All compounded with a lingering suspicion that surely a breakthru must surely be around just the corner.

Steve