Dahlgren SYS-2516 (Newbie Here)

Just picked up a Dahlgren SYS-2516 Engraver. Completely new to this, but for $200 I figured it was a steal. It is completely operational as far as I can tell. All axis move freely and smoothly and spindle spins nicely. My question is will this software control this machine and how exactly I communicate with it. The control box has a serial port labeled com1 on the back so I would assume I would connect and communicate through this serial port. I know this sounds like it should be pretty straight forward, but I am just looking for some confirmation that I am heading in the right direction before I damage anything. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance.

Have a great day.
Dave

Thanks for getting back to me.

Unfortunately it did not come with a manual. I just managed to get an old laptop running so I will go ahead and try and connect and see what I can make of it. If this doesn't work out, how would I go about getting a new controller for it? I am not even sure what I would look for. This would be my first engraver ever. I am familiar with 3D printing and I know it's similar, but outside of some basic gcode commands I have zero clue here.

I did see you had a Dahlgren system that you were working with. That is actually how I came across this site. I was trying to find information on the unit I have. I am currently unable to communicate with the control unit. I have windows xp running on the laptop so that should tell you how old it is. In any case inkscape will not even open up on it so I have some troubleshooting to do with that as well. I am just hoping this is not more trouble than it is worth. I am going to keep trying for the moment to try and talk to this thing. I have no idea how old this unit is, but they had to be using something to control it and if I could just figure out what that software was that would be great. It's like these systems cease to exist anywhere anymore. I have never come across something that has almost zero information available on the net. I took a bunch of pictures of the unit so you can see what I am working with. I appreciate the help so far. I have a feeling this may be a long road.

Unfortunately I have had no luck getting inkcut to run at all on XP. I tried upgrading the laptop to windows 7, but I get an error when trying to install inkcut. I installed the dependencies as described, but when I do the command to install inkcut (pip3 install inkcut) it returns a compiling error and will not launch afterwords. I am sure I am doing something wrong. I just have not figured out what it is yet. As far as putty goes that was not successful either. It's like nothing sees this machine at all. I am running out of options here and may have to admit I can not talk to this thing in its current state. It's a well built machine and it's a shame I can't get it running. I will take a picture of the spindle motor when I get a chance to pull the cover off it. I appreciate all the help and thank you again. I may have to do like you said and get a new control board. The other option I will explore is maybe I can't use a usb to serial cord so I have to order a regular rs232 cable. Not sure it will help, but I will give it a try. The fight goes on.