Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post

My first choice and strong advise is to buy an external Motion control and Ethernet based one not USB as Ethernet is so much better. There really is no comparison to parallel port and you'll have much more stable machine that performs like a rocket.

Ethernet Motion control card is like fitness fanatic who looks after him self and runs marathon every day.!!

I like the Analogies

Edit: Just to Add IMO the Parallel port is dieing Technology so best avoided. Like wise USB is unstable for timing critical devises so again best avoided. Ethernet is designed for high speed pulse signals and perfect at it even over distance.
Hi Jazz, so I'm looking at the Ethernet version of Smooth Stepper, Peter has them here, cost around $260, and this is what I'm thinking, run MACH3 in a virtual machine (not emulation) using parallels on the MacBook Pro, with Win7 (32bit), connect the MAC via Ethernet Port to smooth stepper to my Gecko 540 to motors.

Thats where I am at, at the moment. Am I going down the correct road or is even the whole idea of the virtual machine (VM) no good ?. (bearing in mind what you have already said) I'm asking about the VM method as I have seen couple of videos now with MAC's running VM's with MACH3 and motion controllers.

Thanks again, sorry if I am being a bit tedious.