Glenn,
I finally managed to download it, seems most of the problem was on my end (I think) I had a new wireless card and it seemed after about 15 hours something went wrong, buzzing coming out of my monitor speaker with the vol all the way down. Swapped it with another and woosh 25 min later had downloaded solid edge.
I have had little time to play and learn yet but... I was able to draw shapes, dimension, measure volume all in under 5 min without reading anything just following the tool tips as to what they do! It looks pretty user friendly at least not like AutoCad and clones. Now to really learn it and put it to use.
As for the PC issue, I have two 1.7MHz P4's on the way, cube style with CD-ROM drives, plenty of USB ports, serial, LPT port and no HDD (Got a pile of them saved just for this) I will install the software, make a few backup HDD's so it will be a quick swap if something goes south + having a 2nd backup PC, all for about $100. A LCD monitor for another $50 and with my collection of keyboards, mice, trackballs I should be ready to rock and roll, well at least do something. (Jethro Tull- "too old to rock and roll, but too young to die")
Just received 6 replacement driver chips for my HobbyCNC Pro board today so I need to drill and tap a couple of heatsinks and get them on the board ready for the big test this weekend. I have several options for powersupply so that's not a worry I just hope the 74HC14's didn't take a hit too all I can get local are 74HCT04 hex inverters and I am not sure they will work although they are pin for pin the same with very close specs.
A few more visits from UPS, USPS, FedX and I should be good to go. It's just a pain waiting for parts to arrive one at a time from many sources and I still have to design and build motor mounts among other things.
Kristin