Advise on Bridgeport Boss retrofit

[Shotgun]

I just recently bought a Series 1 Bridgeport CNC. I'm pretty sure this is the "Boss" line, but I have no idea which number in the line this one is.
It came wired up to an Ah-ah control system. The previous owner was working on upgrading the controller to an Acorn board, but the project never got to the top of his priority list, and then he was moving his shop.

So, now it is decision time for me. Do I work to get the original motors working with the Ah-ha drivers, controlled via the Acorn board. . . or. . . switch out the motors for modern closed-loop steppers with updated drivers and controller. . . or. . . somewhere in between?

I guess what I'm really looking for is a place to start looking and the decision criteria. As background, I've built a LinuxCNC machine from scratch in the past, so that learning curve has been climbed already. But, that was a decade ago.

 

[alloy]

Many years ago I started out with Bridgeport boss machines and after awhile had them running off ah-ha software. The ah-ha setup made them much easier to run and depending on your hard drive size you virtually had unlimited program size. But even though the ah-ha setup helped I still had the stepper motors and drives. The machine would get lost and I lost a lot of tooling and parts, and one spindle. I actually still have a quick switch 200 spindle for that machine somewhere here.

My vote and what I would do is ditch the steppers and either go modern steppers and drives or servos with position feedback. Relying on 50 year old electronics is just going to frustrate you and cost you time and money.

 

[JimDawson]

As background, I've built a LinuxCNC machine from scratch in the past, so that learning curve has been climbed already.

I would go with linuxCNC and modern servos.