I thought about it at the planning stage of my foray into cnc(I liked the price) but ruled it out as there was already so much for this old dog to learn. I now know enough of how not to keep crashing into everything that I may have another look -  I still like the price 

Thanks

Hi,
whether you go Mach3 or Mach4 or LinuxCNC or any other software solution you will have to learn LOTS an LOTS of new things. In fact if you are not learning
something new then the hobby is rubbish.

Next point is that the software component of the hobby, lets say Mach3 at $175 or Mach4 at $200 is still about the cheapest part of CNC. That's about the price of one 34
size stepper and driver, unless you want Chinese junk of course.

You may have noted just recently that there was a Windows 10 update which buggered up Mach3. Fortunately another company who has Mach3 source code did a tweak and
shared it with NFS so that all Mach3 users could have the patch. Without that patch Mach3 would no longer run with current Windows10. The point is clear, Mach3 development
stopped five years ago and eventually it will no longer work with the latest Windows OS  of the day.

For the sake of $25 extra get Mach4, $25 is the price of a name brand 1/4 inch carbide endmill. It will effectively require the use of an external motion controller, Mach4 using
a parallel port is possible but not sensible, so you can count on say another $200 for that.

OR learn Linux!

Craig

I sent you a PM

Mach4 will not run on the parallel port.
There is a parallel port plugin, but it's limited in functionality, and costs an extra $20.

So yes, you'd need a motion controller.

Truthfully, you would need an external motion controller even to continue using Mach3 as you cannot use the parallel port with a 64-bit system. Windows seems to be trying its hardest to kill the parallel port with its recent updates, so upgrading to a stable and well-supported external motion controller is not a bad idea. Having learned Mach3 and Mach4 at the same time, I did find Mach4 to be easier to learn and I always recommend it to beginners. If you're unsure if you'd like to use Mach3 or Mach4, both are free to download and try out at machsupport.com. You won't be able to move your machine until you get an external motion controller, but it will help you get a feel for the two programs before diving in. You can also check out our YouTube channel if you want to see some of the newer features of Mach4 or check out a few of our tutorials. I'm also happy to answer any questions here, via PM, or via our helpdesk at support.machsupport.com.

-Bryanna

In fairness to Microsoft i think we're the only ones still using it, unless anyone else knows better.