Here's an article on Nvidia's site talking about advantages of the Quadro line. http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_geforce.html

The 768MB nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX Graphics card he's getting is about as good as you can get for a gaming card. I'd like to see a side by side with a few Quadro FXs sometime.

One Solidworks, two Mastercam, Firefox, Citrix, QCD (mp3 player), and a few Windows Explorer windows is typical for me. I've had four or five Mcams open at once in the past. Win XP Pro 64, AMD 4000+, 2GB RAM, Quadro FX 540. Your machine should be running circles around mine, so I'd have a techie look at it. Oh, one thing that just occurred to me. If I leave a Mastercam session thinking about something and it's still thinking about it when I switch back, the screen will be frozen and showing whatever was obscuring it until Mastercam finishes thinking and refreshes the screen. If that's what's going on I wouldn't worry about it, it doesn't take any longer to finish thinking.

When modeling threads I've found it's best to model one turn, and then translate and boolean add. If you try to do too many threads the software can get confused. I hope you're not trying to make a double-encompassing worm gear, that would be a bit of a trick to model. Hey, I should try that some time, it might be fun.

Chances are you'll want a more powerful computer for it than you could get away with for 8. Whachya got? There's also a little bit of a learning / adjustment period that you'll go through, but Mater's right, once you get used to it you won't go back. You will be able to run both versions side by side during your transition period. Oh, one thing to watch out for. If you get a new computer to run X2 on and it has XP Pro 64 it won't run 9 or older versions. I don't know about Vista, you'll have to search or ask the other guys.

You could try Mastercam Draft. I've got a v9 and a v6. The v6 would probably run on a calculator.

Join the beta group and find out...

Create Curve at Intersection.

I've heard about that, but then you're limited by the speed of the USB interface.

You can also get some Bismuth based alloys that melt at your choice of temperatures from about the boiling point of water down to below room temperature. I'd been thinking that some of this with a melting point of about 150° - 170°F would work well for fixturing flimsy parts. You could put the fixture in hot water to load and unload, and it would be solid at room temp.

Speaking of RAMdrives, there's a product I saw at Microcenter that has me curious. It's a PCI slot card that holds RAM sticks and shows them to the mobo as a drive. It could be cheaper and faster than a flash based solid state drive for use as virtual memory and tempfile space. It even has a battery / capacitor to keep the memory alive when powered down, so you don't have to be so careful about putting things there that you don't want to lose. Anyone used one of these?

I say let'em cheat on the homework, they'll flunk the final.

Ah, MCCoreRes.dll in the resources folder has the main stash.

What about the icons for built-in functions? Those have to be somewhere, and I figure they might be a good starting place for making some new ones.

What file has the main collection of icon resources in it? I looked in Mastercam.exe and a few others but they didn't have much.

Hard to do that for basic 2D beginning Mastercam. If you draw the 2D profile to print, it will be exactly a certain way. No room for interpretation.

I would say not. Mastercam doesn't do Macro B programming.

Here ya go: code: % O1234(SERIAL#S,FOR,TEKNA-SEAL,10618) (10-5-06)(MDH) (#524=0) (REMOVE,PARENTHESESE) (#525=1) (AND,SET,DIGITS,HERE) (#526=2) (PUT,PARENTHESESE,BACK) (#527=2) (FOR,AUTO,INCREMENT) N13(ENGRAVING,POINT,OR,1/32,E/M) T13M6 M1 N900 G0G90G54X-0.075Y0.55S6500M3 (<----POSITION HERE FOR 1ST NUMBER) (FIND FIRST DIGIT) IF[#524EQ0]GOTO 10 IF[#524EQ1.]GOTO 11 IF[#524EQ2.]GOTO 12 IF[#524EQ3.]GOTO 13 IF[#524EQ4.]GOTO 14 IF[#524EQ5.]GOTO 15 IF[#524EQ6.]GOTO 16 IF[#524EQ7.]GOTO 17 IF[#524EQ8.]GOTO 18 IF[#524EQ9.]GOTO 19 #3000=99(SETTING ERROR) M00 N10M98P4000 GOTO 925 N11M98P4001 GOTO 925 N12M98P4002 GOTO 925 N13M98P4003 GOTO 925 N14M98P4004 GOTO 925 N15M98P4005 GOTO 925 N16M98P4006 GOTO 925 N17M98P4007 GOTO 925 N18M98P4008 GOTO 925 N19M98P4009 GOTO 925 N925 G0G90G54X-.025Y0.55 (<----POSITION HERE FOR 2ND NUMBER) (FIND 2ND DIGIT) IF[#525EQ0]GOTO 20 IF[#525EQ1.]GOTO 21 IF[#525EQ2.]GOTO 22 IF[#525EQ3.]GOTO 23 IF[#525EQ4.]GOTO 24 IF[#525EQ5.]GOTO 25 IF[#525EQ6.]GOTO 26 IF[#525EQ7.]GOTO 27 IF[#525EQ8.]GOTO 28 IF[#525EQ9.]GOTO 29 #3000=99(SETTING ERROR) M00 N20M98P4000 GOTO 950 N21M98P4001 GOTO 950 N22M98P4002 GOTO 950 N23M98P4003 GOTO 950 N24M98P4004 GOTO 950 N25M98P4005 GOTO 950 N26M98P4006 GOTO 950 N27M98P4007 GOTO 950 N28M98P4008 GOTO 950 N29M98P4009 GOTO 950 N950 G0G90G54X.025Y0.55 (<----POSITION HERE FOR 3RD NUMBER) (FIND 3RD DIGIT) IF[#526EQ0]GOTO 30 IF[#526EQ1.]GOTO 31 IF[#526EQ2.]GOTO 32 IF[#526EQ3.]GOTO 33 IF[#526EQ4.]GOTO 34 IF[#526EQ5.]GOTO 35 IF[#526EQ6.]GOTO 36 IF[#526EQ7.]GOTO 37 IF[#526EQ8.]GOTO 38 IF[#526EQ9.]GOTO 39 #3000=99(SETTING ERROR) M00 N30M98P4000 GOTO 975 N31M98P4001 GOTO 975 N32M98P4002 GOTO 975 N33M98P4003 GOTO 975 N34M98P4004 GOTO 975 N35M98P4005 GOTO 975 N36M98P4006 GOTO 975 N37M98P4007 GOTO 975 N38M98P4008 GOTO 975 N39M98P4009 N975 G0G90G54X0.075Y0.55 (<----POSITION HERE FOR 4TH NUMBER) (FIND FIRST DIGIT) IF[#527EQ0]GOTO 40 IF[#527EQ1.]GOTO 41 IF[#527EQ2.]GOTO 42 IF[#527EQ3.]GOTO 43 IF[#527EQ4.]GOTO 44 IF[#527EQ5.]GOTO 45 IF[#527EQ6.]GOTO 46 IF[#527EQ7.]GOTO 47 IF[#527EQ8.]GOTO 48 IF[#527EQ9.]GOTO 49 #3000=99(SETTING ERROR) M00 N40M98P4000 GOTO 980 N41M98P4001 GOTO 980 N42M98P4002 GOTO 980 N43M98P4003 GOTO 980 N44M98P4004 GOTO 980 N45M98P4005 GOTO 980 N46M98P4006 GOTO 980 N47M98P4007 GOTO 980 N48M98P4008 GOTO 980 N49M98P4009 GOTO 980 (UPDATE AND TEST COUNTERS) N980 #527=#527+1 IF [#527 LT 10.] GOTO 985 #527=0 #526=#526+1 IF [#526 LT 10.] GOTO 985 #526=0 #525=#525+1 IF [#525 LT 10.]GOTO 985 #525=0 #524=#524+1 IF [#524 LT 10.] GOTO 985 #524=0 N985M9G91G28Z0M19 M30 O4000 (ZERO) G91G0X.014Y-.0202 G90G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. G3Y.0404I-.0556J.0202 X-.028I-.014J-.005 Y-.0404I.0556J-.0202 X.028I.014J.005 G1Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4001 (ONE) G91G0X-.0086Y-.03 G90G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. X.0172 Z.035F100. G0Z.07 X-.0086 Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. Y.06 X-.0086Y-.0086 Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4002 (TWO) G91G0X-.0166Y.0214 G90G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. G2X.0148Y.0086I.0148J-.0085 G1X.0013 G2X.0172Y-.0164I0.J-.0171 X-.0045Y-.0107I-.0172J.0008 X-.0154Y-.0115I-.0926J.108 G3X-.0147Y-.0214I.0139J-.0254 G1X.0358 Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4003 (THREE) G91G0X-.0171Y.0214 G90G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. G2X.0149Y.0086I.0149J-.0087 G1X.0022 G2X.0125Y-.0047I0.J-.0189 X.0046Y-.0103I-.0091J-.0103 X-.0127Y-.0149I-.0151J0. G1X-.0043 X.0043 G2X.0136Y-.0151I-.0015J-.0151 X-.0047Y-.0103I-.0137J0. X-.0124Y-.0047I-.0124J.0142 G1X-.004 G2X-.0149Y.0086I0.J.0173 G1Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4004 (FOUR) G91G0X.0111Y-.03 G90G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. Y.06 X-.031Y-.0459 X.0398 Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4005 (FIVE) G91G0X-.0188Y-.0215 G90G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. G3X.0034Y-.0038I.016J.0106 X.0126Y-.0047I.0126J.0144 G1X.0027 G3X.0163Y.0095I0.J.0188 X-.0007Y.0205I-.017J.0097 X-.007Y.0062I-.0151J-.0101 X-.0101Y.0024I-.0101J-.0203 X-.0172Y-.0051I-.0011J-.0277 G1Y.0265 X.0363 Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4006 (SIX) G91G0X-.0164Y-.0165 G90G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. G2X.0343Y-.0012I.0173J.0042 X-.0343Y.0012I-.017J.0055 X.0012Y.0342I.0512J.0153 X.0325Y.0033I.0169J-.0055 G1Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4007 (SEVEN) G91G0X-.018Y.03 G90G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. X.036 G3X-.018Y-.06I.091J-.06 G1Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4008 (EIGHT) G91G0X-.0019Y.0021 G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. G2X-.0065Y.0263I0.J.014 X.0065Y.0016I.0065J-.0123 G1X.0038 G2X.0139Y-.0139I0.J-.0139 X-.0139Y-.014I-.0139J0. G1X-.0038 G3X-.0133Y-.0252I0.J-.016 X.0133Y-.0069I.0133J.0092 G1X.0038 G3X.0161Y.0161I0.J.0161 X-.0161Y.016I-.0161J0. G1Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 O4009 (NINE) G91G0X-.0173Y-.021 G43H1Z.1 G91Z-.07 G1Z-.035F5. G3X.0325Y.0033I.0156J.0088 X.0012Y.0342I-.05J.0189 X-.0343Y.0012I-.0173J-.0043 X.0343Y-.0012I.017J-.0054 G1Z.035F100. G0Z.07 M99 %

Thanks Takashi, it works great. I even assigned it a hotkey. Now if only it could remember the tool size from one call to the next...

From "http://www.iscomach.com/": "Click Here for Latest News - Updated August 25, 2004" Are they looking for a Web Designer too?

Ach. I got mixed up between the new threads and the old threads I was searching through. Zombie undead thread! Run!

I did not set it as the startup C-Hook. With that FT file in place, it uses the cursor from the C-Hook , but is not actually in the C-hook at startup. In that condition I can run the C-Hook once and it will function correctly, but without turning off the "verify" cursor on exit. Here's what I put in the FT file: APPLICATION "Ai_Freehand" FUNC_DLL "chooksAi_Freehand.dll" RES_DLL "chooksAi_Freehand.dll" FUNCTION CPP "m_main" SBMP 101 LBMP 102 TIP 1 END_FUNCTION

quote: It's actually a Starfleet thread as opposed to a Star Trek thread. Jack, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Starfleet part of Star Trek? What makes it different? Do you wear your Starfleet threads to work? BTW I haven't read the thread being referred to.

I tried doing this for Takashi's "Ai-Freehand" C-hook, and it's giving me a 10" white shaded circle for a cursor on Mastercam startup. Can someone clue me in? Thanks.

I know I said I would rather just create geometry, but after trying Takashi's C-Hook I think I'm hooked. That could be really useful.