Thank you Craig. Good advice all the way around.

I’ve got an extra ESS and will probably end up using it.
  My laptop is running the motors very roughly anyways. I hooked it up to a machine that runs fine and the motors on it turned roughly when run by this laptop. Are there laptop brands or OS that won’t run mach3 smoothly? My computer is a dell latitude d600 running Windows XP.  I know laptops are not really advised but I need it to be portable.
Jim

Hi,
laptops of any description are not recommended for parallel port operation.

They should all work fine with an external motion controller like an ESS.

Craig