Boxford 125 TCL conversion advice

[John11668]

I feel I need to add that I am far from being the most experienced on here so maybe not best placed to advise you but at least I have gone though the TCL mill and made a few mistakes. I am confident that Mach3 will not do your job. I looked at Mach 4 , but was not prepared to shell out for the license until the M4 folks could convince me it worked and I never really got a satisfactory answer. They haven't even got around to writing the manual yet and I understand it has been around for ten years or more .
Linux it seems has to operate though a parallel port so an older machine has advantages but if you wish to use your TCL keyboard you will need an additional PP too. Those however with current wisdom seem to favour Ethernet controllers which give lots more scope for the inputs from your buttons.

I am having an intermittent problem with missing steps at the moment so still got a bit of work before I can consider my own task successfull