I'm thinking of adding external start/stop/pause buttons to my system by using three input pins and associated OEM codes (which are 1000, 1001 and 1003 I believe). So that should be straightforward.

Is there any way of controlling an output based on these? The purpose of these would be to have the buttons illuminate to show the current machine status. This is going to be a better option than using external electronics, which might not be a realistic representation of the current software status...

I'm thinking some kind of macro attached to the on-screen buttons (is that possible??) to switch one of the outputs (there are 6 available). And if this is possible, would the OEM trigger be equivalent to using the onscreen button, i.e. also would launch the associated macro?

One further question which is vaguely related- what is the purpose of having 6 possible 'enable' outputs? I'm struggling to see how/why Mach 3 would control these individually. I believe these (all of these?) change state when the software is in e-stop mode?

In all the above, I'm referring to using parallel ports (I have two) rather than a dedicated motion control board. I know that the motion control boards have more comprehensive support for what I'm looking to implement.

Forgive me for not looking around the Mach forums, the search engine is down....

Thanks!