Lift Off!

Whew.

Even though I've been weaving with a computer assisted dobby for ages (early 1990s?) changing looms meant changing dobby and changing how that dobby connects with my computer.

I love the elegance of Fiberworks, have been using it since the beginning to drive the AVL and really wanted to be able to use Fiberworks to drive the Megado.

The desktop I was using?  Had other ideas.  It stubbornly refused to connect to the loom. 

Fortunately I have options, to whit a laptop which also has Fiberworks installed on it.  I use it for teaching the Olds program so having Fiberworks available on it was a must.

After much backing and forthing with Dave van S, we finally got the loom and the laptop to work together with the loom's built in computer, but my preference was to use the desktop/Fiberworks and Dave kindly offered to try and help me with that.  But he was on the road and it took a couple of days for our schedules to line up.

This morning he called and we tried and tried to get the desktop to talk to the loom and just could not make it work.  Since I have a love/hate relationship with that particular computer, I had already decided that if we could not get it functioning today I was going to just switch to the laptop.

After repeated attempts to get the desktop to behave, Dave commented that I didn't have Fiberworks on my laptop.  I assured him that I did.

So I swapped out the desktop for the laptop and within just a few minutes the laptop was connected and the loom was live! 

Now the desktop can go into storage as a back up, the computer cabinet will be turned into something else, and I can start getting the Megado set up with a test warp.  Hopefully tomorrow.

For now I am taking the rest of the day off.

Huge hat tip to Dave and Jane for all the times they stepped in to help.  I think Dave has more patience than I will ever have and I am grateful beyond words.