Thanks for all the replies and information, i kinda get the idea mach 3/4 is dead and we have all moved on . . lol
I have had a look at all of the suggestions made and i think i will be going down the UCCNC route, but i do have a some questions regarding this
I have the mill setup with drives in place, my control box is built and wired up with a ECG breakout board linked to 3 DM860A micro stepper drivers and all this works with the supplied pennant.
Part of the package I brought was a copy of Mach3 Which i have installed onto my windows XP computer, and mach3 seems to drive it all ok so i know everything works but i cannot get the limit switches and or the estop to work - that is to say when i have them connected Mach3 tells me i am on a limit switch and or the e-stop, when i look in diagnostics screen i dont have any yellow leds lit, i have tried wiring them both ways round No and Nc and neither seems to work, now some times i can hit the reset and mach3 seems ok with all the limit switches connected and will play ball for several minutes before bing the reset starts to flash and it is saying im on a limit switch, it is partly the fact that this is random that i suspect the possibilty of a software fault, but it could be other things any suggestions - wow that was long winded but back to the questions about UCCNC will this work with my current setup i.e windows XP 32 bit, my breakout board and microstepper drivers, it seems to me that the motion controller effectively replaces the parallel port is this the case, or is there more to buy?

hope this all makes some sort of sense, i can post some pictures of my setup so far when i can figure out how too

Steve