Keeping TRAK

The ProtoTRAK is one of the greatest niche products of all time. This podcast will roll up its sleeves and dive into the subject of how the ProtoTRAK fits in the connected world of CNC machining; a world dominated by CAD/CAM/G Code technology. Want to join the people who make lots of money selling ProtoTRAK? Then dive in, do the work, and sharpen your understanding of exactly how ProtoTRAK continues to be essential to cnc machining in the modern world. 

Okay…there is one heck of a lot of jargon in the new TRAKsi brochure.  This podcast takes on the role of explaining, Wheelie-to-Wheelie, what it is saying and how it came to be the way it is.  While these podcasts are written to accompany you during your windshield time, the first time through this one you may want to grind through with the brochure in front of you…but not while driving, please!

Our small company has been welcomed into the Siemens family by Siemens staff, techies, and executives. We've worked side-by-side with them for several years now and have often been bewildered by the scale of what we've encountered. This podcast won't clear up all the mysteries, but it will help you understand where TRAK fits into the Siemens world and what we offer customers who already believe Siemens is an important part of manufacturing's future.

Siemens.  What do you really know about this giant in the field of industrial technology?  This podcast sheds a little light on the depth and breadth of its operations worldwide, in the process setting the stage for us to understand our own place in the great Industrial Architecture.

What started as a simple project to get an article published in Modern Machine Shop turned into a “best case scenario” when talented editor Brent Donaldson found the true story of how the ProtoTRAK came to be. In this podcast Alyssa reads the feature article that appeared in the July 2025 issue of Modern Machine Shop that stars the ProtoTRAK as none other than “the control that shaped the future of CNC.” Yeah, baby! 

This newly-recorded selling messages podcast includes new details on the machine as well as an interview with two of TRAK’s ace Sales Reps - Brian Napolitano (Massachusetts) and Wayne Shoaf (Michigan). The TRAK TMC is a big opportunity for our customers to get to the next level of productivity and for us to sell a lot of machines to help them do just that. With all those ProtoTRAK Knee Mills and Bed Mills you should be delivering these messages a lot. 

In this episode, Alyssa interviews John Ballent to continue our exploration of the process of making software. John takes us behind the scenes for a fascinating inside look into the world of professional software development. This podcast includes explanations for the origin and resolution of the recent “Blue Screen” problem as well as an explanation for how (and why) Engineering creates and distributes different software versions. 

The Challenges of Creating Sophisticated Software. Part 1 

The ProtoTRAK works so well that we take it for granted. But making great CNC software is  difficult and complicated. In this episode, Alyssa reads an essay that was written with the help of software - Chat GPT to be exact - and carefully edited by Steve Pinto and John Ballent, our Senior Software Engineer. In it, we describe the realities of creating and maintaining complex software. 

In this episode Alyssa breaks down the details that explain why TRAK has become the knee mill of choice in thousands of companies and schools. You’ll also get a personal glimpse behind the relationship between Top One and TRAK as she interviews Rita Fong, a member of the family that owns and runs Top One. 

If you’re like most people who have been around the ProtoTRAK for a while, you probably take its ease of use for granted.  This episode will focus on the disciplined process of keeping the ProtoTRAK easy to use that has enabled it to compete and win in the world of giants like Haas, Fanuc and Mitsubishi.