I’ve seen a lot of MXL parts for sale on ebay since the MXL is now discontinued in favor of the FireFinder XLS system. My old high school (built in 2006) was equipped with an MXL system and figured, “you know, why not”?. How proprietary is the MXL panel over Simplex’s 4100 or 4100u panels? Also if I were to acquire the csg-m software somehow would I need a dongle or passcode? However, isn’t all panel programming just a excel type file with all devices and settings encoded into a file format that the panel can read? If I were to download the configuration off of a used SMB-2 board, would I be able to open it somehow, edit it, and re-download back to the panel using a parallel pc port without the software? Also would this apply to any proprietary panel like Simplex, EST, and Mircom .etc?
Thanks