Old PC`s and Mach3

[Neale]

I bought a one of these a year or so back as I had to replace a motherboard (as it happens, in an old HP PC) and cheap motherboards don't have parallel ports. I'm using LinuxCNC at the moment so wanted to avoid the external motion controller route as there isn't much choice anyway. This PCI card has been working fine under Linux with a cheap BOB on the end of the parallel cable, but I can't speak for Mach3 use. I have built the PC as dual-boot and have Mach3 demo on the Windows half - I really should test it!

[Tenson]

I've got an HP Compaq Pentium 4 box sitting here with XP. It works pretty well for Mach 3. Anyone can have it for free if you collect from Kent, DA11. Only PC box, no monitor or keyboard etc..

Edit: Just like this one - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Compaq-...item43d8963d6f

[cropwell]

I have got a Netmos 2 parallel port adapter and a BoB sitting in a box (somewhere in my shitheap of an office). It was intended for my new build, but Zapp had such a good deal on a CSLabs controller that I decided not to use the PP solution, for the reasons so ably discussed in this thread.

Let me warn anyone thinking of using a PCI PP card that unless you get a driver disk with it, you will have a hunt for the driver for XP as both PCI and XP are obsolete, but I found them on the net at one time and I have a disk with some suitable drivers for this type of card.

Best of Luck,

Rob

[magicniner]

It's lucky that we're not stuck with XP and that Mach3 works perfectly well on Windows 7, which finds good drivers for a huge range of hardware, new and old.

- Nick

[cropwell]

Hi Nick,

The PC I use for CNC is an old (ish) machine running XP. I have stripped out everything in the system that I don't need, Games, Networking etc and have disabled devices in the BIOS so that drivers it doesn't need are not loaded. As a result, the system is very stable and loads in <20 seconds as it has a SSD in it.

I tried the PP card on a Win7 machine with little success but did not pursue the matter as it was not mission critical.

It was fun getting into Mach3 and I am impressed with the range of customisation possible.

I am not a fan of Win7 and its successors, but that is because my understanding of the OS, as complexity increases, lessens. I was happy with Win95 - I understood it more (I must just be a reactionary old fart ).


Cheers

Rob

[magicniner]

(I must just be a reactionary old fart ).

Rob,
I don't think that's the case, everyone is best sticking with what they're happy with.

Windows 7 simply gives access to several later generations of PC hardware,
Regards,
Nick

[Clive S]

It also depends if it is 32bit or 64 bit syatem

[magicniner]

It also depends if it is 32bit or 64 bit syatem

Given that parallel ports are not supported under 64 bit then external motion controllers would be the only option in 64 bit, Mach3 still works under 64 bit though

- Nick

[Tenson]

I also don't like Windows 8 and 10. My wife just got a Win 8 'Surface Pro' from work. I can't make heads nor tails of it on first use. I'm very comfortable with win 7 and predecessors.

[i2i]

this p/port computer problem is not down to a specific model or make of computer. I have 8 dell computers that are exactly the same, four of them work, four of them don't. They all have the same setup and were completely wiped before installation of xp.