[Coco] [coco] Coco CNC

[Bruce W. Calkins]

>> Quite a few years ago, I met a man that had a sign shop. He had a CNC 
>> machine that cut out text into such things as name plates, the formica 
>> type you see on doors and on desks and such. It ran from a '286 machine. 
>> It's my understanding that the '286 wasn't really that much faster than a 
>> 2mhz coco. However, this thing could spin up those steppers until they 
>> sang suprano.



I'm thinking the math was pre-done and the machine ran on data templates





>> Now that I think on this, it's hard to believe I've been using that coco 
>> for more than this length of time. WOW! That SCSI drive and the coco
>> should be in the Guiness Book of Records, huh?



> I think there are quite a few of us in that category,



On that note, my first CoCo 3 hard drive died many years ago due in part to 
a lack of auto park and my lack of information on that issue.  Their main 
successors are a quartet of Maxtor XT-2190 MFM drives, normally used in 
rotation.  The first was a gift from an electronics tech and the other three 
were acquired from eBay.  One of those was dead on arrival, but was revived 
with a logic board from (drum roll) eBay.  Regrettably they have been 
sitting since the move and big D.  I need to get off my butt and get them 
warmed up soon.  The prices sought on eBay for those puppies, dead or alive, 
now astound me.  As to the prices they actually get?  Not enough to entice 
me to part with mine, yet.  One big thrill was the technical manual for the 
Adaptec SCSI to MFM board.  Somewhere in that book is the how-to for the 
magic trace cut that will get two boards working together so I can get all 
four drives running off from my Disto interface.  That set is planned as 
part of my humungous repacked CoCo 3.



Bruce W.