Firewire / follow up for JK

["David Volosky" <djvolosky-at-voyager.net>]

John,

I think, based on your reply, that perhaps I gave an impression that I don't
agree with your observations. I did read them all and personally agree -
from a hobby standpoint.
I was merely attempting to indicate that DT was already through this same
cycle of ' bad old days, bad new days '. BTW, is the white paper still
there? I didn't bother to look.
They were one of the more competitive retro-fits ( PC card-based ) available
several years ago. I hoped to convert the ' cage ' and drives from a phased
out, specialized production machine to home CNC so I took a good look at
what they had to offer.
There are several parallel, loosely related, analogies to be had is this
matter. In my opinion, the best example is amateur radio. It has a large
segment of participants that would rather build equipment - for ZERO cost to
them - than actually communicate with others. A very small fraction of these
same people were ( and are ) responsible for driving technology forward.
Another characteristic of some is that they are ' tight, very tight ' with
their money. ( Consider my intention above to see where I fit in. ). CB
created a ' looser ' mass market for equipment and, in the same time frame,
technology changed. Equipment soon became, by orders of magnitude, better
and much less expensive. ( I equate the ham operators to the motion control
products and the CB operators to the average PC consumers ) This same shift
in technology also cut a major number of the equipment home-builders out of
the picture - in a traditional sense - for many of the same reasons that you
state, relative to the computer hardware.
I agree that over the short term there is little for the CNC hobbyist to
worry about. But, how long this period continues, might just matter to
others on this list. I feel that the safe approach is to push forward and '
hack ' the same hardware solutions that the commercial interests are
favoring. There is no cost effective, or any, motivation to compete with
established producers along a parallel development path.

I am still patiently waiting for the rigid tapping and threading limitations
to be eliminated in EMC. If I felt that I could make a meaningful
contribution, I would already be working on the changes. I do appreciate
what you and others here are doing to help me achieve a goal that would ,
otherwise, remain out of reach.

Dave