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Mastercam V6


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Hey all,

 

If anyone out there has access to a legit seat of Mastercam V6 (not X6 ... we're talking mid-1990's) please send me a private message. 

We've got a reseller trying to help a customer upgrade (finally??) and he insists that he has toolpath data in GE3s he sent, but I'm not seeing any.

I've only got access as far back as V7 (without heading into the office to rummage through boxes) but I would like to see what the files look like in the version they were created in.

 

Thanks in advance.

Pete

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I can't help you with the seat but If I remember correctly v6 didn't have a toolpath manager without an addon that came way late. It was strictly post and append unless he is after geometry.

 

edit:: actually I think the toolpath manager didn't come in until v7.

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12 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

Yikes! 

I can't think of a single thing that would be worth saving anyway, efficiency-wise! 

Any of the tooling or data should be chucked out and re-done with modern materials/work-holding/feeds/speeds/etc...

100% agree Aaron!

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1 hour ago, gms1 said:

Some things don't require modern stuff, hell most modern stuff is just designed to fail so you shovel more money in someone else's pocket to fix it.  At the end of the day, a contour is still a contour.

That's why I still love and use the wireframe toolpaths to this day!

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1 hour ago, Tim Johnson said:

Sorry, I meant V6

I would have expected a floppy!

3 hours ago, gms1 said:

Some things don't require modern stuff, hell most modern stuff is just designed to fail so you shovel more money in someone else's pocket to fix it.  At the end of the day, a contour is still a contour.

I couldn't agree more

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I have the install and it may work on a Windows 10 if you are running a a Network license as the drivers are not support for a single hasp. I have V9.1 on a laptop that runs on Win10 as long as you have a nethasp.
V6 was on floppy. I copied all the files to my server. I go as far back as 5.5. The V6 install is 6.13A being the last install for that version before I went into beta testing of V7.

V7 was the first version to offer the op's manager. you could only regen the 2D paths not the 3D or multiaxis.

Pete please let me know if you want to try and install and get running?

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I believe your right Pete, we used to if I remember create our batch files to generate the NCI's overnight to review them the next day. you were looking at those NCI files to backplot and then post...if I remember correctly...shoot what'd I have for breakfast... oh well let's eat again 😃

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22 minutes ago, Richard Thomas - Mastercam UK said:

We are also just updating a customer from Lathe 6.13!   I started back around then, just before V7 came out 😊

Since you're on the reseller side and have more direct access to the customer, perhaps you can answer the question:

What major event happened now (not the past 27 years!) that made them think, "Huh, I should probably update my cam system."?

I mean, I'm hoping that if I bought something now, in 27 years, I'd be thinking about retiring, not learning a new program!  :)

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Just now, Aaron Eberhard said:

Since you're on the reseller side and have more direct access to the customer, perhaps you can answer the question:

What major event happened now (not the past 27 years!) that made them think, "Huh, I should probably update my cam system."?

I mean, I'm hoping that if I bought something now, in 27 years, I'd be thinking about retiring, not learning a new program!

The main thing that has pushed the customer into upgrading is the fear of their old PC hardware (early 2000's era) finally giving up the ghost and not being able to replace parts.   They just  about managed to recover from a cyber attack last year too.  The management has accepted the IT dept's long-standing concern that they are leaving themselves open to a production halt unless they bring their HW/SW up to date.

I have since wowed them with some of the things modern Mastercam can do, but I honestly think if they could continue to carry on as they are with no production risks, they probably would!

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I saw this happen to a shop I did business with 20 years ago

They built aircraft connectors. They had 20 or 30 screw machines and bar feed lathes

It was  24/7 turn and burn.

They had an ancient main frame computer the size of a refrigerator with tape reel drives like an old sifi movie.

This machine ran the business. A secretary entered an order, the machine issued the shop router, ordered the stock

scheduled the machine time, inspection time and deburr time, cut the shippers and produced the invoice.

It started showing it's age and the quotes to modernize it were running $200K+

They hemmed and hawed and did nothing.

The machine finally failed, and the company was bankrupt within a year.

The machine did so much, there was no one left that actually knew how to run the business.

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44 minutes ago, Richard Thomas - Mastercam UK said:

The main thing that has pushed the customer into upgrading is the fear of their old PC hardware (early 2000's era) finally giving up the ghost and not being able to replace parts.   They just  about managed to recover from a cyber attack last year too.  The management has accepted the IT dept's long-standing concern that they are leaving themselves open to a production halt unless they bring their HW/SW up to date.

I have since wowed them with some of the things modern Mastercam can do, but I honestly think if they could continue to carry on as they are with no production risks, they probably would!

Fair enough.  I remember back in "the day," I was helping out a NASA shop and they were panic-buying all of the 386 processors they could from Ebay, as they were considered radiation-hardened already due to the die size, whereas "modern" Pentium processors were not.  I can't imagine it's easy to find a good condition Pentium 1 processor nowadays...

31 minutes ago, gcode said:

I saw this happen to a shop I did business with 20 years ago

They built aircraft connectors. They had 20 or 30 screw machines and bar feed lathes

It was  24/7 turn and burn.

They had an ancient main frame computer the size of a refrigerator with tape reel drives like an old sifi movie.

This machine ran the business. A secretary entered an order, the machine issued the shop router, ordered the stock

scheduled the machine time, inspection time and deburr time, cut the shippers and produced the invoice.

It started showing it's age and the quotes to modernize it were running $200K+

They hemmed and hawed and did nothing.

The machine finally failed, and the company was bankrupt within a year.

The machine did so much, there was no one left that actually knew how to run the business.

Huh... I guess that's kinda the dream, right?  Make a big investment, semi-retire to the beach while it basically runs itself and if it crashes and burns after 30+ years, well, you've got enough in the bank that you can coast out the rest of your days in style anyway.

How short-sighted to hinge it all on that....

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1 hour ago, gcode said:

I saw this happen to a shop I did business with 20 years ago

They built aircraft connectors. They had 20 or 30 screw machines and bar feed lathes

It was  24/7 turn and burn.

They had an ancient main frame computer the size of a refrigerator with tape reel drives like an old sifi movie.

This machine ran the business. A secretary entered an order, the machine issued the shop router, ordered the stock

scheduled the machine time, inspection time and deburr time, cut the shippers and produced the invoice.

It started showing it's age and the quotes to modernize it were running $200K+

They hemmed and hawed and did nothing.

The machine finally failed, and the company was bankrupt within a year.

The machine did so much, there was no one left that actually knew how to run the business.

I'm pretty sure that was a star trek episode too.

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The only place I've seen a Parallel Port on a PC in the last 15 years-ish... in in Inspection attached to CMM computers.

Speaking of getting hold of  Pentium class... I was digging around the garage last weekend found my old Adaptec SCSI Wide Ultra II card and HDD. :rofl:I was going to plug it in but there are no drivers past I think Windows 98 or Windows 2000 Pro. 😮

That's the danger of not updating... You REALLY accelerate that built in obsolescense train, and the ONLY way to avoid that head on collision is to update.

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