Given that Warp9 and the MACH people appear to be pushing the Ethernet version of the SS odds are the real problem is with the USB interface and that isn't going to be fixed with either MACH4 or WIN-8 or WIN-10^24.
I like my Probotix interface board. I like the idea of the USB SS to Probotix interface. I could see changing to the Ethernet version. But the SS isn't supported in the LinuxCNC environment so I guess it's a moot point. As for rewriting MACH. Here's my prediction. "MACH4 will eventually be sold to a single manufacturer much like 3D Systems purchased Alibre. That manufacturer, will for a short time, continue to support the hobby market while they restructure what MACH4 does. At that point other competitors will be shut out." The hobby market will be left to their own devices. And who cares really? A BeagleBone Black, Xylotex and MachineKit with an HDMI screen does easily what the older 400MHz Pentiums were doing with Linux. And the Beagle at 1GHz costs $60. The days of the dedicated PC to save money by doing both the graphical rendering and the machine control are over. WIN-8 and up don't support parallel ports or even serial ports directly. As I understand it even the higher end Linux Systems use add on board for the encoders and other I/O. Dating myself a bit I recall a discussion with a friend in one of the computer stores. He argued, unsuccessfully I think, that where discrete logic would work it was overkill to use a processor what with RAM and EPROM costs. I debated that if the solution was easier with a processor then why use discrete logic. Flash memory and the 8 pin PIC and ATMEL families have demonstrated that solution is more viable than multiple logic gates. So it will be with CNC. The Beagle or any other dedicated ARM or PIC32 processor is the future for the CNC control of machines. The user interfaces will be the technology that now exists in the tablets with touch pads. And here's the kicker. When we were busy saving money using MACH2 and a PC with parallel port or diving into a fairly crude EMC on Linux Fedora we were spending well over $1000. Now we complain if the costs of the whole CNC system are above $500. I won't even start with what a simple Pentium 66 Packard Bell Computer cost when we bought a PC for our kids. John > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Cole [mailto:linuxcncro...@gmail.com] > Sent: September-18-15 7:06 PM > To: emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: Re: [Emc-users] CAD/CAM for LinuxCNC > > > On 9/18/2015 8:52 PM, John Dammeyer wrote: > > I spent a day re-aligning my CNC router > > because suddenly MACH3 and the USB SS decided to run the Z axis past > then > > end of the table. A Windows Reboot made the problem go away. > > That's why Mach4 had to be a total rewrite. If the bugs can't be > found, you have to start over. > > Dave > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
