Good Progress

["Tom Droege" <droege@snapmail.us>]

As you all know, I am working to switch over from running the telescopes
under Windowz to running under linux.

A second computer was brought up and loaded with Rob's software
successfully.  There a lot of steps to do this.  I feel good when I can do
the whole process without asking any questions of Rob. There are always a
few steps that I do wrong, but I am learning to recognize the problems and
how to fix them.

I am well on the way to switching all the telescopes.  At the moment, I
just have to get some memory delivered, and discover whether it is the
right type to match the boards I have found that have an ISA slot.

It appears that the only current use for ISA slot boards is lome legacy
communications applications.  So far I have only found two baords that
might work.  They each seem to take something special.  OK, I know there
are lots of used boards out there.  Used computers seem cheaper than boat
anchors.  In fact, I can't here in Battavia IL throw a computer int othe
trash.  I have to pay for a special pickup.  So old computers here are
worth less than nothing.

The reason I don't use old computers that would be fast enough to take
images is that, I am trying to get a configuration that is fast enought to
process the images in real time without the complexity of moving them to
another computer.  We shall see.

Meanwhile, I am running tom1 every clear night and taking what I expect
will be production data.

Tom Droege