LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

Have a friend that has Mac tunnel vision. If it can't be run on a Mac it's not worth running. BUT... he wants play with RDWorks. Anybody know it it will run on a virtual machine and talk to the controller via network instead of USB?

I'm a PC guy and have NO knowledge or desire to get mixed up with a computer that won't let you get to a C prompt.

It should run in a virtual machine, and would likely work with either USB or Ethernet. You could also point the friend at LightBurn, which runs native on MacOS, and supports Ruida controllers as well.

Good to know about LightBurn going direct and working on a Mac. I use Corel for most of my design work, then export via macro to RDWorks for final cut sequencing and such. What's involved in doing the virtual machine? Is it built in, or something they have to download / buy? The closest I get to a Mac is her iPhnoe, and I am ignorant of it and plan on staying that way. I like something I can get to a C prompt if I need to.

Want a chuckle, ask an Apple / Mac user how to get to a C prompt. The looks and questions are hilarious. The first thing said is usually, "What's a C prompt?"

Offer to show him how easy it is to use a PC with RD Works. Place the offending Mac on the Bed of your Laser and do a really slow 100% Power 10mm Grid pattern on it should sort out the offending device

Mac users and even the Linux or Die mob can't understand why no one writes Industrial style software to suit them natively. One is because it was never really a thing with Apples in the past and the other is why would you spend the $ developing for the 2-3% of geeks who are more than capable of making their machines dual boot with one hand tied behind their backs.

Kudos for Lightburn for doing the work and 'allowing' Macs to play

I about fell off my chair at your solution for the mac, reminds me of golf when I was young. The course owners kid and I were buds. Saturday afternoon we'd sit behind one of the bunkers and play our version of golf... .22LR hollow point makes them go poof! A little cloud of rubber bands as they are shredded. Most of the time taking the covering as well unless it's a new ball. Ahhhh, those were the good old days...

Nothing wrong with a little destruction to keep you young or even memories of past destructions

My early programming days were on Apple 2+ and 2E's but even then the very early Dataloggers and Instruments we played with at Secondary school were IBM XT or AT based with software written in Qbasic. When I headed to Uni to do Engineering PC's and the big HP Mainframes is what got used. The then Early Macs just simply didn't do Engineering based tasks and have never really been taken seriously for it again.

I really hate to say it, but my first venture into programming was with punch cards... Never could get into it. Tried later with some basic, but I was just too impatient to sit and write code.

I did some playing with paper tape and cards but they were really on the way out 35-40 years ago. Due to the school only having a couple of Apple 2's early in the piece we used Pencil marked cards for writing the programs on to 'save' time. Move forward a year and we got to a half class set and the Card reader was put in an appropriate place