Ha,
You hit my buttons on the mark, but on the same tolken the machines that I run still rely on the code to be correct, its been my exeperience that only hardware and operator error have caused problems, not windows or the underlying system these are networked with roughly 400 others. These machines also intergrate a visual positioning system so far more overhead then a normal mach machine would have.
Thats not say you could not get a plc to run the lathe and have mach run it, again not a perfect system and I don't always like it. I do understand the benefits to DOS, and I know windows isnt perfect, but on the same hand if you don't expose the computer to the effects of having a bunch useless crap on it then your possiblites of crashing are greatly reduced, windows XP in of itself is a good program its all the other stuff that great reduces its ablity and increases its overhead(this being brought to my attention after having to do a fresh install becuase of a hardware faillure on my own PC). If you are going to be worried about running a long or complicated part its best to not even have the computer used other then the purpose of driving the machine and related software. The true fact is the machine cannot react as fast as windows(on a newer machine) can in a given time frame-assuming all is well with both. I am old enough to have used DOS enough to know is not exactly perfect either, however I would agree that its far and away more so then XP as an OS.
chris  |