Or - go one better. Buy a brand-new $300 E-machine PC (figure a 2Ghz Celeron) which comes WITH a monitor and has lots more horsepower than any Laser Show software will ever need... Add an EasyLase USB DAC and the Mamba software, and you'd be at about the same price as the Merlin unit with much better hardware.
That's exactly what I thought at first. I could get a USB DAC for around $500 and use my computer, which I think has enough power to run the software. And still, I get the advantage of being able to use any other computer, which means I don't have to lug around a cumbersome box.
Now the real question may be, is it better to run the shows off the parallel port or the USB port? Which offers the most benefits?
Remember the future?, That'd today, as you imagined it yesterday.