16-1/2 year old PR96...

One owner, less productive than I should be.

I bought my shopbot back in May of 1997, and I still have it. (There was even talk back then of providing a Mac option to interface with it - ah, well, that never worked out.)

The only substantive upgrade I've done was changing from the "separate parallelization cable" (yes, it's that old) to the "drive and parallelization cable in one" arrangement. Everything else cost too much for the amount I was doing.

It's been clear for a long time that if it ever makes sense to upgrade, it makes more sense to buy a whole new tool and get all the stuff that comes with these days - lack of software to get other things into .sbp is a large issue which I see is a lot better with (now) included PartWorks software (not, so far as I know, included circa 1997, nor would it make much sense for that to be back-upgraded to us.) IF that ever happens, the old guy should be fine as a slow prober if I cobble up software (and/or limit switches) that I'm confident enough in to let it grind away overnight - but for now, it still has to work if anyone is going to.

So, I have done a bunch of simple and a few more complex things programming directly in SBP, or making use of what free packages there are/were, but the general 3D capabilities are barely touched on.

After considerable idle time during years (not actually over yet) of "work on the shop" rather than the desired end result of "work in the shop", I'm digging my way back into it. Presently trying to help out a younger guy with some sketchup drawings he'd like to cut. Seems to be a pain without PartWorks.

Evidently the forums got wiped and rebuilt since I last signed up in 2004.

Any other dinosaurs around here?

You guys should talk: http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18828

-B