Brian, my answer is subjective, since I don't own a R8B, and like
another poster, I've known Mark for many years - at least as far back as
when he used to sell his products at the Kulpsville Winterfest, and a
few years before that.

If I were just starting out, I'd probably start with Scan Manager (if
it can control a R8B with R8 settings, which I know of at least 1 other
package that does this). Mark's software is very good, but he has
discontinued support of his older Windows/DOS versions, as well as
discontinued his development of version 4 of his software.
On the other hand, Ergo4 has many of the features that Mark was
trying to develop, and even has a dedicated Yahoo group for this
software. That alone is an advantage, since you can get help from other
users.
Frequency Manager is also listed for Drake support, but appears to be
more oriented for ham/ute listeners. It's probably a bit more expensive
as well.
There's probably more packages I don't know of that support the
Drake, but these are some of the best known. 73s Mike

Brian Denley wrote:
So which others do you recommend Michael?