loading LinuxCNC on old smithy 1240

Again, I apologize and also for any trouble, I'm just trying to do what I can with this old beast. I have been reading all the docs and following all the questions and answers, but I realize I don't understand enough to even understand the replies. I've made changes as I believe I understood, but even when gui came up, pendant didn't work even though it seems to in manual test mode.

Thank you, I need to get it back to the gui coming up. I have made so many changes following the help and docs, I thought I was able to get it back, but not yet.

Well I got the gui back up. I see the lcd display now responds when I move x.y.z from the kbd, but no function from the mpg.
As for "Halscope and Halshow (both accessible from the "Machine" menu are the way to diagnose this sort of thing.
Especially the Halshow "Watch" tab where you can display multiple inputs and outputs."   Honestly, I'm lost. it's like your talking rocket science, and I'm here still trying to figure out how to bang 2 rocks together (;->). I really thought this would be easier. There is a ton of info in the forum on this, but I feel it is geared to those that already have some understanding of how this works. I have been reading and reading and trying. I found a video where it was explained on a much lower level, still a bit over my head, but I could reach for it, and I realized there were a bunch of info relating to the buttons that needed to be added to my ini file, that explains why I felt like I was missing something. I assumed (incorrectly) that when the xhb-h04 was now included in v2.6 and up, that it would just run with minor tweaks. Well, I will continue to try to learn some more, if you can maybe point me somewhere to get more info on the basics, ie: files needed, what they do, where they go, how they interact, anything helps at this point. If not I understand, I've taken up a lot of your time so far.

Well I've gotten further I think, I nor get a box pop up with error
xhc-hb04.tcl loaduser xhc-xb04:
<waitpid failed xhc-hb04
xhc-hb04 exited without becoming ready>
is it plugged in?
are permissions correct?
Continuing without xhc-hb04
Failing cmd
loadusr -W xhc-hb04 -x -s 1 -l
/usr/share/linuxcnc/hallib/xhc-hb04-layout2.cfg


I'm not sure if i have a wrong switch as I have seen it different in different searches, and i don't know if it is version related.

 

Well I got a copy of a good ini file with the xhc-mpg lines in it. I was able to use it to get mine to work (mostly). It still a bit of work to go, but at least I'm moving forward. Thank you again andypugh for all your help.