That's right Ron. You have a license to "Use" not "Own" the software. But that's not unique to Mastercam. All software is licensed that way. It's part of every license agreement you've ever clicked "OK" on. Many customers are surprised when you explain it to them. If someone does buy a used package and then goes to re-license it, it does costs as much as buying a new package. Depending how much the guy paid for the used package, it may cost a lot more. Mike Mattera

Mick: Do you dream in VBS when you sleep at night . I can see that in the future all solutions to all problems will lead down the VB path. Mike Mattera

How come this never happens with my auctions? I'd gladly wear a dress if it would sell my training cd's. Mike Mattera

This is the first auction I've ever seen go down. It's about to close at $3850. Mike Mattera

Went from 5,640,000 to 5,670,000 hits in about 1 minute. Getting about 25,000 - 30,000 hitw per minute. I dont get it this morning it was up for $2.1 million then it went to $25,000. not as it's about to close it's at $6350.00. Still, it's better than the $4000 wedding ring she got. Mike Mattera

I Love XP Pro Mike Mattera

If it failed to help you out when you really needed it, It must be French. . Sorry George, dont know what it is and I've never see one. Good Luck. Mike Mattera

The lurker emerges from the ether. Hi Paul . Mike Mattera

With the current special, Mastercam Solids is about 20% of the cost of Solidworks. Does it to what they do? NO! Will it ever do what Solidworks does? NO! But if if doesn't save you enough time to pay for itself in the first month or 2, I'd be real surprised. Yes the reason X is so secret is because it's all being outsourced to an off shore delevoper. Well not "off shore", but "off planet". The work has been contracted to the planet Uranus. Well not the maybe not the planet, just Uranus. Mike Mattera

Maybe the reseller couldn't get the codes till he paid his bill . Seriously, It is un-nerving to wait till the last minute. You know if everyone in Austraila is having the same problem, you should contact [email protected] . Glad your running. Mike Mattera

www.magicmicro.com AMD64 3200 w/ 1GB Ram - Nvidia FX5600 w/ 256mb - 120GB HD. about $1000. Hot Box. Great Price. They also sell on Ebay. That's how I found them. Since then I bought 2 lesser boxes and love them. Mike Mattera

Most of my customers use the Haas post as is. The only exception is to switch off the rotary axis. Look for question 164 towards the bottom of the post and change the answer to N . Other than that it a great post. I think the main reason is that it's Hass' control on Haas' machine. Not like a Fanuc, where the builder can change what ever they want. A Haas always work the same. Mike Mattera

Go James!! I agree what good does it to to get advise if you ask the wrong people. Many times those performance teste are A) Sponsored by the company that makes the card. or The test is some automated program that measures how fast it can draw 10,000 lines. Rarely are they a test of what's stable in multiple environments (i.e. Works) or what people like. It's not that ATI wont work with Mastercam. I have an old PIII 550 notebook that's always worked pretty well. Some of the time you have to FORCE ATI to do something useful, but the Nvidia is a bullett proof solution. They ALWAYS work. It's amazing how well a $40 Nvidia works vs a $250 ATI POS. As for the acceleration, if you read the prompts displayed when you lower the acceleration. It tells you what things are being disabled or what quirkiness it should removed. Actually that's my biggest complaint about Win NT4. It has no acceleration adjustment. Mike Mattera

So far all the dealers got 1 disk. CNC is supplying disks to the dealers, for customers. We dont have those yet. I know it's not expensive to burn a copy for you, but it is time consuming for your dealer to do. I'm sure your dealer will be sending you a disk when he gets them from CNC. Hang tight everyone. I hate waiting to "get the new stuff" also . Mike Mattera

Brendan: You have operators who can read??? You must be paying top dollar dude! Mike Mattera

In Mastercam lathe you always want to program to the theoretical tip (the intersection of the X Z cutting edges) and let Mastercam do the nose comp. Most machines have too many rules for comp and Mastercam has none. Mike Mattera

I believe the answer is YES You Do. If you have V9.1, you need to update to sp1 and then sp2. I believe what Jay is saying is that if you have a V9.1 SP2 disk, then you can just get the maintenance & Cad converter patches from the web, and go from there. Mike Mattera

What do you call a pretty girl in Wisconsin? .....A Visitor. Mike Mattera

I love when they publish these "Serious Flaws" whether its for Windows or the internet. The first (and most eager) people to read this stuff is the hackers. So Brent: Where are you from originaly? I'm a transplant from Chicago. I remember when I first called one of my co-workers a cheese head. Then he called me a FIB. We all laughed. Then I asked "what's a FIB". I had never heard that one before. Certianly a lot harsher than Cheese Head. Mike Mattera

Bought an AMD64 3200 system from magicmicro.com. They aso sell on ebay. It has the Nvidia FX5600 w/ 256MB and you can upgrade to the 120GB SATA drive. It was about $1000. Great box. I Love it. Mike Mattera

Hey Karl, The new one on the Mastercam site should not be password protected. I had that problem also. I can send it to you if you need it. Let me know. Mike Mattera

The download does NOT contain: - Sample drawings - CATIA Translator - Design Tracker 8 (Inventor utilities) - Postprocessors So if your instaling on top of your existing system, you may no need this stuff. Mike Mattera

Do your have the hasp9.exe dated October 2003. Start - Programs - Mastercam 9 - Hasp Utility. The date is shown on the top title bar. There should be a Maintenance date in the lower right hand side. Is the date right? If you dont have a date, go to Mastercam.com and download it from the support section. Mike Matters

There is no advantage in skipping a version. I've seen customers do that i the past. Skip 8 and go to 9. First off, they waist too much time trying to get out ot date software to do todays jobs. Then when they get the new version the learning curve is greater than if they bstayed up to date. There is no good reason for not keeping up to date. Unless you plan to go out of business. Before, if you skipped a version, the next update cost the same amount. NO MORE. An update costs more than maintenance and you only get the updates up to that point. If they make a change the following week, you dont get it unless your on maintenance. biss03: Do your boss a favor - Convince him to update NOW, before X is released. Or he's really going to pay the price for falling behind. Mike Mattera

What is the path for the NCI (toolpath) data? Is it creating the folder to accomadate the NCI information? Mike Mattera