Sorry about that, all of this made prefect sense in my head, I didn't do a very good job of explaining it to you.

The comment about Mach3 should have been clarified. The control panel will have a selector to determine if Mach3 will have the control or it will be given to the joystick exclusively. They will never share control and the joystick isn't meant to control through Mach3. The control panel may be shared with my mill in the future, in which case a pendant will make more sense. For now, the gantry isn't set up for heavy machining and just needs a semi-automated positioning. I think Henrik is correct, Mach3 has a provision for joystick input, but this is more an experiment in direct control with the PIC and joystick. Currently the application with the gantry and Mach3 may be masking the usefulness of this. Since Step/Direction controls are easily available and can be used with servos or steppers, there are a lot of uses for an independent control system that is very intuitive. I'm thinking animatronics and such too.

I have had a little time and started to study your thoughts and I agree, the main parts are there. I also am studying Walter's link to glean how it was done there. Sorry I don't have any code to share yet, I'm still working through the structure.

Bo