The CNC lathe where I work is an old LeBlond Makino with a GN 6N control. When I took the job noone bothered to tell me that the punch tape had been broke years earlier and noone has taken the time to update it to accept any RS-232 communication (!!!??>?!!! grrrr!!! ). They don't seem to think it's a big deal to write 70-200 line programs on legal pads and reenter them every time they want to run that part (yeah, I know.... wth and omg are definitely in order here). I have access to a laptop and any 25/ 9 pin stuff I need either at home or there.

Questions:
1) is there a lot involved in setting this up for program input/output? Can you either tell me how or direct me where I can get some advice on doing so?

2) I think the machine can hold maybe a 1000 lines in bubble memory. Can this machine be drip fed, would it be worth doing, and what is the best way to do this?

I thank anyone who takes the time to post ahead of time......my fingers are starting to hurt!