I have an old Viking #1+ which still works great but I haven't embroidered anything for the past 5 years. I'm trying to get back into the hobby as I really enjoyed digitizing my own designs. I'm running into all kinds of trouble getting my reader/writer to work as I no longer have a Win95 machine.

I won't bore you with the details of everything that I've tried but the end result is that maybe I'll reward my failed efforts with the purchase of a new embroidery only machine.

Is it possible to buy a decent embroidery only machine for under $500 that will read custom designs off a Little Max rewriteable card?

I don't care much about built-in designs/fonts or fancy displays. The key feature is the ability to read my memory card since the fun part for me is digitizing my own designs.

The card packaging claims it works for Baby Lock, Brother, Bernina Deco, Simplicity, White, Viking 1+, Rose, 605. I don't completely trust the claim as my Viking 1+ could not read the card. Has anyone had success with the Little Max card with their embroidery machine?