that`s a bit different tormach is a hobby machine brand new controller not proven yet. (yes M4 the same but it`s a round and round and round yes once more round and round argument) people get what they wont if they wont to play they do if not you get something that help is a phone call away and a big bill. (;-)

the other one`s been around for how long you don't need to tinker with those ones you just upgrade.

Obviously Greg does not have a licensing problem with LinuxCNC. Could be because he PAID to have some of HIS version changed for him by the GROUP. Money talks(;-).

NOW will you see that CORE version show up in the free  LinuxCNC Yes you will soon. Will you be able to get the GUI interface( the part that makes it easy to use), Never happen unless Greg decides to SELL it to you.  Just good business sense from my standpoint. 

(;-) TP

f___  BR549 I am a boy not a girl (:-)), I am not going to drop money on something that is not proven I will try to use the new linixcnc as a experiment between M3 and M4 to see what one can run the dud machine better.

the other one its a dream on M3 it will be changed to M4 when it fully finished because I wont a two in one.

linuxCNC may have come to an agreement with tormach that they will pay for the new version to be done if they cant have there own locked down version of the same thing who know`s.

linux is hard to set up yes the tormach version wont be they all the same machine one can do a fully set up install in one go with everything pre set nowen machine so thats a round and round again argument

(;-) WHO said you were a girl??

YOU may be able to get the LinuxCNC core app BUT you cannot get the Pilot version Unless you either Upgrade a tormach machine OR buy a new machine.

They will NOT sell the unit outright, Already tried (;-).

The Pilot has been in beta now for well over a year working out the few bugs it had. Just few knew.

I am patiently waiting on M4 (;-) Still a Mach fan

(;-) TP

boy daniel, girl daniell just taking the piss.

good to hear you still a Mach fan other wise I would get the men in white coat to take you away (:-)).
 
yer the difference between pilot and M4 is pilot went from an existing base, M4 nice and shiny so linuxCNC taken how long to get where it is im

Quote from: smurph on February 21, 2015, 02:19:42 PM

Yeah, you can buy a license for gcedit and it turns on tool paths and some other features. 

I'm trying to think of a reason to use notepad instead of gcEdit and I just can't.  LOL  But waaaaaaay down on my list is making the editor changeable. 

Seve

Rather vague. Are the feature I specifically referenced 'turned on' in the pro version?whatever the fee is for a 'pro' or equiv version of gcedit, but only if it has the features that I want.

As to comparing gcedit and Notepad . .  nobrainer. On the other hand compare Notepad++ to gcedit . . .  once again  . no brainer . . just in the other direction.

Incidentally, I tried the hack mentioned by PATTON, except with Notepad ++ and it worked. More then just the primary .exe is needed and I don't know exactly what as I just copied the whole Notepad ++ directory and it worked fine after that. 

One last comment that will probably get me in trouble .  as usual . . is that sarcastic responses to users who are providing feedback as to what is needed in MACH is not going to win you any champions. Judging by recent developments at Tormach, you can't afford to loose to many more.

Whether you like the comments or not, people still spent their time to provide them and some respect for that time would be appropriate, methinks.

But that's just me . . . .   

I was not vague.  Some of the other features are not finished yet.  The tool path is done.  But we really haven't promoted it at this point yet because we don't know what all we will add.  So if vague being that "I don't know what else at this point" then I guess so.

No one noticed the "LOL" in the comment?  Or was it just you?  It was not sarcasm for the sake of anything.  It was a joke.  That is how I am.  I like to joke around.  I'm a happy guy.  And I refuse to walk around on eggs shells just to keep from accidentally pissing someone off.  I will be the first to tell you that I'm not politically correct in any shape, form, or fashion.  It is not worth my time.  We have precious few minutes to live on this Earth to be wasting them on that kind of stuff. 

And I was trying to be honest too.  I have that "editor change feature" on my list.  But it is way down the list at the moment.  Nothing else meant at all. 

And now I find myself getting a lecture (on my birthday of all days) from someone that doesn't even bother to look at the editors and see if the other feature that you "specifically referenced" but are being "vague" about (by not mentioning it again) has been implemented.  It seems that you would rather just open up a forum and post Negative Nancy comments.  Thanks, but no thanks.  Just so as not to be vague, I'll throw it out there...  Printing.  It needed to be done.  It took me three weeks to get it in there.  I won't get paid a penny for it either as gcEdit is freely available in the Demo.  You are welcome!

For the rest of you that post constructive things, I want you to know that I spend MY time trying to make this software the best that it can possibly be.  I spend 12 or more hours every day doing that.  We listen to your requests and we try to get every one of them in there somehow within reason.  We are not going to cater to the 1% on anything though.  We are not going to write one person custom software that does EVERYTHING he wants it to do in a niche environment.  But yeah...  if it is something everyone will benefit from, we try to get it in there.  It just takes time.  Lots of it. 

Terry, to the point of the EMC source code ( a brief history ) :

LinuxCNC is nice.  It came from the original EMC code that National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) did.  NIST is a government agency that used our tax dollars for the project.  The code is public domain.  Meaning anyone could use/change it without having to give away the changes (Edin, planet CNC, etc...).  Public domain is like that.  That is why none of those OEMs, companies, or whatever do not have to release their source code.

Now, somehow someone decided to slap the GPL license on it at a later date.  How they could "re-license" something that had already been in the public domain is a point to ponder!!!  Personally, I don't think it was legal.  I have the original sources from NIST and it is clearly stated in the code that anyone can use it and that it is public domain.  This has been stripped and replaced with the GPL in the "new" zip file of the code.   The NIST code, not the LinuxCNC code.

Mach3 was derived from that original NIST code.  Many changes had to be made in order for it to work on the Windows platform.  One would be hard pressed to see any resemblance between the two code bases.  The interpreter would be recognizable and that is about it.   And the heart of Mach 3 was the parallel port code that was solely Art's baby.  Oh and let's not forget about the user interface, which was 100% Art.  And let me tell you that is the hardest part.  If it were easy, LinuxCNC would have the same thing already!  We don't use any of the NIST code anymore in Mach 4.

I had a machine running LinuxCNC.  I liked it.  But I'm a computer nerd.  And I also have the skills to change it and make it do my bidding.  Try asking the LinuxCNC group for a feature and see how far that gets you.  There is absolutely NO motivation to do it unless one of the LinuxCNC programmers wants to add it because it is useful for him/her.  That is the way of the open source world.  I know, as I used to program for OpenBSD.  Only we gave the code away completely!  No GPL.  OpenBSD license.  Much like the MIT license.  Free as in free and no strings attached.  Code that I worked on is swimming around in so many commercial products that I can't even begin to fathom how many companies use it.  My reward?  I know that my work has made many people's lives better.  Our motivation for adding needed features in Mach is being able to eat.  Yeah...  we are dirty capitalist that have families that have an affinity for food.  (There I go joking again...)

So for the people that are not C/C++ programmers, we offer Mach.  It is your choice on what to use. 

Steve

Tormach, EMC, LinuxCNC, Mach3, Mach4 etc.

EMC was developed by NIST, an agency of the government of the USA.

Most developments of US agencies, including EMC, are public domain.
They are not and may not be copyrighted. Anyone is free to use them
as they see fit.

The various versions of Mach, and many other CNC control systems are
derived from the public domain version of EMC.

Tormach's version of LinuxCNC is derived from LinuxCNC, which does
claim GPL copyright. Tormach has indicated that they intend to comply
with those GPL requirements. Indeed, some of the work that they sponsored,
updates to the trajectory planner, have already been integrated back
into the LinuxCNC repositories. Some other parts of their product, like
the PathPilot GUI, are possibly only partially covered by GPL. Tormach has
indicated that they want to contribute technology back to LinuxCNC but
wish to do so in a fashion such that other vendors cannot directly
copy their PathPilot GUI.

Tormach's other changes to the LinuxCNC code base may or may not be
integrated back into the main LinuxCNC repositories depending on how
the community feels about them. None the less, they will be available
under the terms of the GPL license.

Tormach is offering their implementation of LinuxCNC as a product that
is supported by them provided that you have purchased their equipment
and do not modify the software. If you utilize it on other hardware or
modify the software, then you must support yourself.

The Tormach implementation runs on a Linux distribution controlled by
Tormach and requires specific Mesa interface hardware to run. If you
want to design screens or write scripts, this is outside the realm of
things that Tormach will support. If you want to run on a different
distribution of Linux, you are on your own. Obviously it will not
run on a Windows based machine.

Mach4 is derived from prior versions of Mach and is a descendant of the
original EMC released by NIST. It runs on modern Windows machines and
can be extensively customized by both vendors and users.

LinuxCNC's motion control is tightly integrated with the real time
operating system and motion control devices must be able to communicate
with the operating system software in real time if you are using their
standard control model. This is possible in Tormach's case because the
Mesa hardware that they chose is plugged directly into the computer's
internal card slots.

The Mach family uses a looser integration of the motion controller, or
parallel port driver, with the operating system software. This allows
the use of external devices that communicate with USB or Ethernet and
which can tolerate communication delays of up to a couple of seconds.
Not that a delay that long is desirable. Vendors supporting Mach4 are
trying to shorten that delay as much a possible, perhaps to as little
as 1/10 of a second. Still, that requires that the motion control
device be intelligent and capable of responding to limits, probing,
threading and similar tasks itself rather than depending on the host
based software.

Windows cannot be relied upon to respond like a real time control
system. The parallel port drivers have effectively been a simple real
time operating systme which runs Windows as a task. This is becoming
nearly impossible with modern versions of Windows. No 64 bit versions of
Windows allow this, and the 32 bit version Windows 7 is the last one on
which a parallel port driver has been implemented successfully.

The Mesa hardware which Tormach is using requires real time management.
Because of this it is unlikely that a plug-in for Mach4 will be attempted.
It may be possible, but it would end up behaving like other motion devices
under Mach, ie. loosely coupled.

The jest of these observations is that Tormach's version of LinuxCNC and
Mach4 are really two different animals, each with their own place.

Regards,
Steve Stallings
www.PMDX.com

good words like don't like the 1% ever even tho I am a 5% person.

also thanks for doing 12 hours a day keep up the good work just make 7 day`s a.

now no more Linux ********* please.

 back on to M4 please can we have tool height probing in next relise please

Steve I think you just schooled everyone

Dang Smurph IF I had known you were hungry I could have sent you a Big ol stake . What kind do you like Pine? Oak? Poplar? or some import mahogany. Teak ?

As to the Mesa stuff, they run a processor similar to the ESS and the ESS does not have to have a realtime OS. It depends on WHICH mesa card you plan to run.  I have talked with Mesa about a Mach4 setup and they were not interested for some reason(;-) Same as for Mach3.

IF the USBSS and ESS can do it they should be able to do it as well The boards are programmable for use.

BUT that is why you Big Dawgs get the Big money (;-)

Thats a joke son, I say I say a joke son.  (Foghorn Leghorn)  

What ARE yall doing up so late anyway ??


(;-) TP

Not hungry.  Just setting the record straight.  We are making a lot of people happy with Mach4.  And that is what it is all about!  Some will never be happy though and that's ok.  I know we can't make everyone happy and I can live with that. 

Here is the scoop on Mesa:

The reason Mesa is not interested in Mach3 or Mach4 is that they don't have the staff to support it.  They build motion controllers, not software.  And his target market doesn't require him to have a software team.  Mesa sells tons of boards to the Silicon Valley area companies.  And they enjoy a good LinuxCNC market as well.  But that market has "free" programmers that made the Mesa work with LinuxCNC and they keep it up and support it.  So Mesa doesn't really have to. 

I like the Mesa boards.  A while back (10 years?), I wrote a C API library for the Mesa SoftDMC firmware that a few of Mesa's customers use.  I gave it to them because I liked their stuff so much.  And Peter Wallace is a good guy.  And I actually wrote a Mesa plugin for Mach3 but never released it because I didn't have the time to support it.  So if there is a Mesa plugin for Mach 4, it will be supported by Mach (or maybe someone else?).  The downside is that it will not be free because someone will have to pay for the development.  This is in stark contrast to the motion boards that are built and supported buy their manufacturers.  ESS, PMDX, HiCON, DSPMC, etc...  They write the plugins for their boards because Mach is their market. 

Anyone want to step up and write the Mesa plugin and support it?  I'm completely serious.  It deserves a good go.  But it would have to be supported where people wouldn't be left out on an island with hardware that won't work after a Mach update.  We don't want that at all! 

Why am I up late?  Man...  I don't know!  I guess it is my quiet time when I can get on forums and stuff.  It seems there is not enough time in the day for me otherwise. 

Steve