Re: Time for Software

[Chris Albertson <chrisja@jps.net>]

Nick and all,

My (limited) experience is that IRAF  runs exatly the same on
Linux as it does on Solaris.  Whatever Arne writes for Linux/IRAF
should just work under Solaris as is.  I assume Arne when he says
"scripts" means IRAF "CL" scripts.  If so they don't even have to
be recompiled as CL is interpreted.  Same with database software.
It is very portable between Linux/i386 and Solaris/SPARC.

The control software I am writing is essentially a network
interface to the Mk IV that accepts higher level commands than
the STAMP such at "move to ra,dec" or "takeimage 200 seconds".
it depends on another program to feed it these commands.  I
include tools to write such a program in either C or TCL.  I've
been calling this a "scheduler".  This is a big piece of code
that some one needs to write.

It will be interesting to see how the SPARC 10s perform.  They
are now relics from a previous century and run at what, a whopping
50Mhz?  But they have good floating point performance relative
to their clock speed maybe on par with a Pentium 120.  If you
have enough 10's you could keep up in real time.

I actually like old SPARCs and have a collection of them here at home.
There is an IPC, Classic, II, 4 and three 5s. and boxes of spare parts.
All salvaged or bought at fire sale price.  I'm trying to figure out
what to do with them.  I could help with any Linux/Solaris porting
problems that come up.  I've got a DEC Alpha computer here too.
(I just couldn't pass up a chance to get one at $79.00.)  Linux
runs well in Sun SPARCs.  To bad there is no IRAF for Linux/SPARC. 

Nicholas Beser wrote:
> 
> 
> My primary analysis computers for TASS MarkIV are the sparc 10's, with linux
> systems doing just data capture and routing. I would like to work with the
> linux team, but I hope we will be able to port the code to Solaris 2.7. (Based
> on my experience with TASS Software, I would urge Chris to be the leader of the
> linux Team.)
> 
> Reminds me of an old movie where the sargent asks for volunteers, and the group
> takes one giant step (Backward).
> 
> Nick

-- 
   --Chris Albertson             home: chrisja@jps.net        
     Redondo Beach, California   work: calbertson@logicon.com