Hi Jim
It's not stupid at all, I think what your referring to is a normal situation it just shows a view orientation marker, not a 0,0,0 position.
Hold down the left mouse key in the view screen and move it around, shows world view orientation, double click mouse again should be straight view d-clk again should give a 3D view, right mouse moves/drags image around.
Hit the Tab key, MPG-Jog window, something else to think about if you haven't found it yet.
So-many feature's, Mach3 is great, Check-out the Tutorials Documentation down-load some of it and review.
Hope this Helps, Chip