Heidenhain Positip Memory

Could anyone using a Heidenhain Positip 850, 855 or 880 comment on how much memory they have and how many programs you can store? Heidenhain specs only list that you can have 9999 blocks in a program.

Would also like to hear from anyone who could compare the differences between the models in daily usage (am aware of the major technical differences), and if you find the ability to write and run programs usefull for prototype work and small production runs.

Just recently fixed a broken Positip 850 that I got for cheap and played with it for a while.

IMO the "programming" feature is more or less a joke, since it has no servo output whatsoever. It just tells the operator to move into direction XYZ by n mm/inches. IMO faster to write that down or look a the drawing while machining.

As a DRO, it's nice though. Supports nearly all 11uA Heidenhain scales and an encoder for rotary table. Interpolation and resolution is also adjustable.

I agree with DMD. I have a Positip 855 and i really like it, but never use the programming feature....I just work off a sketch for remembering the cut ends.....
Original reason i bought it was (no laughing) the context sensitive help. Provides step by step on features lest you forget some that you rarely use....
Also changes the XYZ calls when changing the comp direction for tool lengths..nice when doing bolt circles etc.

Does 4 full axis displays and unlike the later Positip does not have a hard drive, so boot up is almost instantaneous, which i prefer.

Also , if anyone is keeping score, it allows scaling of any axis, which for me was a good thing. Own a universal table that originally came off an FP3A (first gen) and that table has the less standard 7000 line
rotary encoder. Not a setting on the box for that number of lines, but you can set ti to the normal 9600 lines and scale the output to give accurate readings.....A feature i did not realize i would need, but
after discovering the setup on the table, i was glad i had that option.

Cheers Ross