Advice requested for these products and any suggestions; Links below

[JAZZCNC]

Well first I will answer you even if I think I've answered enough because i realise living upside down on other side of world must make the blood run to your head so there must be brain damage which makes learning harder.. .

Now being serious. The ESS smooth stepper is ok and will work for you even with Macbook.
Running Mach3 in emulation isn't the problem it's the parallel port driver that's the problem. But the fact you will be using ESS (or any external motion controller) removes this problem because it uses it's own software that runs inside of mach3 and the hardware generates the pulses.

That said I still VERY STRONGLY advise you to get a stand alone PC just for the CNC machine.

[mordy]

Well first I will answer you even if I think I've answered enough because i realise living upside down on other side of world must make the blood run to your head so there must be brain damage which makes learning harder.. .
.

And here is me thinking its my Half British Half Spanish Background that has been hindering me all my life, now I see, it was all those negative G's from airforce flying exacerbated by the 'down under' affect that's done it.

I'll go to trash and treasure this weekend for a PC. (bring the voltmeter) even though I will eventually be using the ethernet rather than PP. (thats the plan, but it is just a plan)

Thanks guys for your help so far.