OPTIMIZING TECHNIQUE FOR SAWING LUMBER

An enhancement for use with a sawing system for allowing an operator to communicate with a computer control to more efficiently carry out the cutting operations in a manual manner. The enhancement of the invention computes optimized cuts, controls a stop block for use during the cutting operations, and detects manual strokes of the saw. The computer system interacts with the operator to prompt the operator to input defect-free lengths of the material and when to manually carry out the cutting operations, thereby providing an overall enhancement to the manual sawing system.