emco compact 55 mill. Just starting

Afternoon internet.
I have just bought this and now have the fun task of retrofitting. I'm wondering what hardware you guys would use. obviously due to the 3 phase steppers ill be using most of the original gear.
Main issue is I'm in UK and don't want to wait for a mesa card from America nor pay £300 quid for one. unless its worth it.
I see a few control board options

Option 1 EC500 remora about £100pros 24V card logic I/O easy. Cons pure china lottery
option 2 MESA 7I76EU about £300 Pro; proven card, known to work, can copy what people have done before. cons price / waiting time.
option 3 Parallel port Pro, cheap crappy board will get going quickest, cons bulky tower pc, will never be happy.

Control computer
Pi 5, from what I've read with ethernet connections theses are good. Pro small, Con dunno if still buggy
any core i5 pc Pro already have, can slice on fusion on same machine, could even set laptop up if it worked (power management fun). con bulky 

 Just wondering if I have missed anything or forgot, I did have a look for a guide to begin with but most just say MESA card

Cheers, I appreciate the reply

This is the internet your not gonna hurt anyone’s feelings but that about the pi is what I half thought.

only issue with the parallel port is I wont have enough I/O.
Back of the napkin mathematics says 14 output 10 input but could be 6

Spindle PWM Dir Enable / Feedback (optional)
Step / dir XYZ 6 / 2 end stops each for some reason 6 (3)
Tool change step dir 2 / end stop / sensor to count tools for some reason
DC drawbar 1 /compressed air 1 / 1 for sensor

but could still get it working limited the re do the extras later.

just wondering if their was a better option

If your spindle is on a VFD, you can save 4 pins by using mb2hal and Modbus RTU from a serial port (forward,reverse, PWM, at speed). By using HOME_SEQUENCE you can reduce the number of inputs required by sharing a single pin for homing. You also gain torque feedback, a more noise resilient system and much more accurate spindle speeds. You don't loose anything. People mistakenly think you need 0-10v spindle control for rigid tapping. But that's not right. In LinuxCNC spindle control is not real time and with rigid tapping, Z axis motion is synchronized by the spindle encoder.
But for the sake of a couple of weeks, why not wait for a mesa card?

sorry missed your reply.

its just bloody brexit
I bit the bullet tonight and ordered
430 euro will come in at about £440
I ordered 2 cards I have 3 machines in total, mill, router, lathe
gonna try to be cheap on the other 2 and share the same card and just make an interface plug. but for now only focusing on mill and maybe lathe.


m/c £250
card £220
...
future costs
dedicated touch screen laptop £180
New steel frame £100
MDI £200

I think I'll still land under my 1k budget

Please don't encourage me.
ordered a lenovo touch screen laptop as well, all coming next week