On Wed, 14 Feb 2018 11:56:41 +0000, Dan S. MacAbre wrote:

Andrew Mawson wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
news
Yeah. As usual what the OP really wants only emerges after a load of
wasted suggestions

I really do think the requirement was clearly stated in the original
post. Perhaps you missed that one ?

Andrew


I'm going to admit that I was a bit confused, although that is probably
obvious by now :-) I thought you just wanted to get some data off the
old PC, for importing into new software on the new PC. I didn't realise
you planned to run the same OS and software on the new one, too. But
yes, it seems clear enough now. If the software drives a specialised
controller, I don't think you can communicate with it from a VM. If it
uses standard connectors that already exist on the new PC, there's a
chance you can. If you are able to run it in a VM, then you can use
folder sharing for the data transfer.

Nicely said! :-)

Unless Andrew cares to expand a little more on the details, I'm assuming
that the CNC interface is either serial port based (or possibly parallel
or even SCSI port) since any specialist adapters made when DOS was King,
are likely to be ISA cards rather than PCI. However, that is pure, best
guess, speculation on my part so we need him to clarify this point before
we can start to consider the virtualisation route.
n
--
Johnny B Good