Thanks Phil for the rap, I would have never considered myself as you described me.
I really do miss Vacpress, he was on fire in his time here. He really was an inspiring character.
I think that most people use computers these days because they are cheap and you are not stuck with paying through the nose for propriety equipment.
You seem to be concerned with the dust factor. I have my computer a long way from the router. I use a printer extension cable. About 10M long. While it can be a bit annoying been that far from the router it certainly keeps the computer at a safe distance. There is the possibility to get a cordless keyboard so that you can bring it closer to the machine. The other possibilty is to make up your own hand controller that uses the guts from the cordless keyboard. I guess the negative is that you wont have a digital read out with it.
You suggested possibly a p2000. That would be more than adequate. I happily use a p500 and that does the job fine for me. The latest version of Mach2 however suggests the minimum of a p800 cpu.
I will pay you later for the nice comment.
Being outside the square !!!