To properly corner a market they all need to drop the prices and fire the dickheads that work for some of the CAD/CAM companies and get people who know both sides very well.
The tooling companies are the same to many word people with no real background in cad/cam or machining in general, kennametal has started to send all there tooling guys out for a few weeks to learn about machining at a high end job shop and there testing labs.

Yes I have had to many set too with support people lately and rant over.

Hi,
one piece of software I use is Eagle a PCB drafting program. When I bought it a perpetual licence was $700NZD. Element14 later sold perpetual licences for the
next generation of the software for $2300NZD. More recently Autodesk have bought it up and they want $500USD annually.

I don't know how the community of users will react to a change to a subscription model and likely to be pretty grumpy at having to log in with Autodesk every
two weeks to keep their program alive.

I suppose if Autodesk brown enough of the current users of then some other company will come up with a program of their own, supply/demand etc.

I feel aggrieved that software just goes out of my reach.

Craig

I did not realise that you are a kiwi where about are you if you don't mind me asking you pick looks like the Marlborough sounds

Hi dude1,
we have conversed before, the picture is Banks Peninsula east of Christchurch. How have you and yours recovered from the earthquake?
I don't know about you but if the gurus are right and we've had our 1 in 500 year event I'm bloody glad its over.

To others reading this post dude1 was shaken by a sucession of earthquakes reaching something like 7.6 about a year ago.
About 5 years ago we suffered a 6.8 but only 5km deep immediately below the city of Christchurch. Both events did incredible
damage and not inconsiderable loss of life.

Craig

More. Than likely I am bad at rembering names yes 7.8 I don't won't to go through that again it nearly killed my wife

Hi dude1,
that's sounds scary, was she badly injured?

Its hard to estimate what the earthquake has done to all our thinking...in some respects nothing has changed and in other subtle but powerful ways
there is a fear that lives in us that can't be answered or gainsaid. I am very far from a religious man but I do pray that there is no recurrence.

Craig

A big jewelry box fell off the draws beside her bed and landed on her pillow, she was not in it at the time if she was it would of stoved her head in, everytime I hear a sound similar to what I heared before it hit scares the ********* out of me.
It's amazing how many earth quakes struck with in split seconds of each other they think it was 12 from hammer to ward within a few seconds, at least it was smaller than the last one that hit the same area back the 1800, did you see the report from nasa on how much the ground moved by.

Hi dude1,
I find it hard to believe the pictures and the numbers about how much things shifted.

I'm several hundred k from the epicentre but I would swear that there was continuous motion for 20 minutes, it seemed to peak and then fade over a few minutes
then another one would come along. Yes the sound is terrifying...

Craig

...maybe try DeskProto (https://www.deskproto.com/) - I've used it for continuous 4th axis work for several years - may not be perfect but have not found any other cam app that offers this feature.