[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]Author Index][Subject Index]
The official 96NOVpl1.0 release of MIDAS available now!

To: midas-announce@ns2.hq.eso.org
Subject: The official 96NOVpl1.0 release of MIDAS available now!
From: Carlos Guirao +49 89 32006-434 <cguirao@eso.org>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 10:59:26 +0100
Sender: owner-midas-announce@web3.hq.eso.org

Dear MIDAS users,

As from today the official 96NOVpl1.0 release of MIDAS is available
on our ftp accounts. 

Best of success and enjoy MIDAS!
	- ESO-MIDAS group.


 MIDAS 96NOV official announcement
 ---------------------------------
 1- What's new or upgraded in MIDAS 96NOV ?
 2- Platform availability
 3- Source distribution of MIDAS 96NOVpl1.0
 4- Binary distribution of MIDAS 96NOVpl1.0
 5- MIDAS 96NOV documentation
 6- MIDAS under the GNU General Public License
 7- MIDAS on a CD-ROM?
 8- Technical Support and Network Services


1- What's new or upgraded in MIDAS 96NOV?
   ------------------------------------------
   Many new things have been added in 96NOV. Many other were upgraded
   and lots of bugs have been fixed in this release compared to the
   previous 95NOV release.

   The following list is just a summary. A more detailed list can be 
   obtained, after installation, with the MIDAS command "help [news]"
   
   Descriptor names:
   - Future NTT and VLT instruments will produce data frames with all ancillary
     information stored in the ESO hierarchical FITS keywords. In order to get
     ready for these long keywords, the max. size of the names of Midas 
     descriptors has been extended to 72 chars.
     Also the limit on the number of elements of a descriptor has been removed
   - Midas files with the new descriptor structure have internal version
     VERS_010. Please, note, that Midas frames with VERSION_010 cannot be 
     processed with any Midas version before 96NOV. Accessing these new frames
     will lead to the "VERNOR" (version not recognized) error.

   New commands:
   - SET/MIDAS MAXTIME. Enforcing guaranteed response times.
   - MODIFY/DISPLAY. Toggle the state of a display window to/from Icon.
   - COPY/OVERLAY. Redraw overlayed graphics and text in an image channel 
     (thus freeing the overlay plane for other graphics/text).
   - COPY/TEIMA. Extract and convert a 3D-table element to a MIDAS image. It 
     is probably very useful for people who want to reduce ISO or IUE data 
     which come in 3D binary FITS tables.

   Command upgrades:
   - CREATE/ICAT - CREATE/TCAT - LOAD/IMAGE - INTAPE/FITS - LABEL/DISPLAY
   - INITIALIZE/DISPLAY - FIND/PIXEL - COMPUTE/KEYWORD -
   - VIEW/IMAGE - BLINK/CHANNEL

   Package upgrades:
   - MOS: Multi Object Spectographical package for reduction of FORS
     data.
   - LYMAN: Package for the processing of multiple-components fitting of 
     interstellar absorption lines.

2- Platform availability.
   ----------------------
   MIDAS 96NOVpl1.0 has been installed and verified on the following 
   platforms:	

   - SUN SunOS/4.1.3     - SUN Solaris 2.5       - HP HP-UX A.10.10      
   - HP HP-UX A.10.20    - PC Linux/2.0.28 (3) 	 - DEC OSF1/V4.0 (1)
   - SG IRIX/5.2	 - IBM AIX/V4.1

   (1) On OSF1/V4.0 MIDAS does not work when running on a "Advanced File 
       System" (AFS) due to a bug in the OS already reported to Digital.
       MIDAS works fine on any local file system.

   (2) MIDAS 96NOV will be ported to VMS and Open/VMS systems by an 
       external site. For those of you interested in MIDAS 96NOV for VMS 
       and Open/VMS please contact Mr. Jean-Pierre De Cuyper at
       "jeanpier@oma.be" or "midas@oma.be".

   (3) MIDAS 96NOV has been tested and verified with both, the fortran_to_C 
       converter 'f2c' and the GNU Fortran compiler 'g77'.

3- Source distribution.
   --------------------
   ESO-MIDAS software and documentation is distributed via the 
   our ftp services only. Only those sites with no access to Internet 
   may request ESO-MIDAS on a type and by regular mail, provided an 
   explicit request has been received, and the site has a User 
   Agreement.

   MIDAS 96NOVpl1.0 is available in source code from our "midas" ftp 
   account: 

   - Ftp host: ftphost.hq.eso.org (134.171.6.9)
   - Ftp account: "ftp". Password: "????????"
   - Directory: /96NOV
   - Files: README.unix
            96NOVpl1.tar.Z
	    installunix.ps.Z

   For a proper installation of MIDAS follow the procedure of the
   installation document provided in PostScript and DVI format.

4- Binary distribution.
   --------------------
   96NOVpl1.0 is also available in binary format for most supported
   platforms. Binary copies of MIDAS are already compiled
   and ready to run. Installation is reduced to just the tuning of
   some configuration files.
   
   Binary copies of 96NOVpl1.0 are available in our anonymous ftp 
   account: 

   - Ftp host: ftphost.hq.eso.org (134.171.6.9)
   - Ftp account: "ftp". Password: <Your mail address>
   - Directories: /midaspub/96NOV/linux		(PC Linux/2.0.28)	
                  /midaspub/96NOV/hp_ux		(HP HP-UX A.10.10)(1)
		  /midaspub/96NOV/alpha_osf	(DEC OSF1/V4.0)	
		  /midaspub/96NOV/ibm_aix	(IBM/AIX 4.1)	
		  /midaspub/96NOV/sg_irix	(SG IRIX/5.2)
		  /midaspub/96NOV/solaris	(SUN Solaris 2.5)
   - Files: README.<platform>
            96NOVpl1.tar.Z

   (1) The binary of MIDAS for HP-UX 10.10 has been tested and verified
       to run also on HP-UX 10.20.
 
5- MIDAS 96NOV documentation.
   ---------------------------
   ESO-MIDAS documentation is available in Postscript and DVI format
   (eventually also in HTML format) from our "anonymous" and "midas" 
   ftp account:

   - Ftp host: ftphost.hq.eso.org (134.171.6.9)
 
   In our "anonymous" account:
   - Ftp account: "ftp". Password: <Your mail address>
   - Directory: /midaspub/96NOV/doc

   - Files: README.doc
            vol1.ps.z    ESO-MIDAS Volume A: System
            vol2_ps.tar  ESO-MIDAS Volume B: Data Reduction
            vol3_ps.tar  ESO-MIDAS Volume C: Detailed Command Descrip.
            env.ps.z     ESO-MIDAS Environment.
            agldoc.tar.Z AGL Documentation.
            ididoc.ps.Z  IDI Documentation.

   Printed copies and updates of documentation can also be obtained 
   by contacting the User Support Group at ESO/Munich.

6- MIDAS under the GNU General Public License
   ------------------------------------------
   ESO-MIDAS is a copyright protected software product of the
   European Southern Observatory, and provides general tools for
   image processing and data reduction

   As of the 95NOV release, patch level 2.0, ESO-MIDAS is available
   under the GNU General Public License. This means that the
   ESO-MIDAS system is available, free of charge and can freely
   redistributed on certain conditions.

   A short statement if the GNU General Public License is included in
   all relevant ESO-MIDAS files and follows below. The full GNU
   License text is included in the ESO-MIDAS release as separate
   text file.

        --------------- ooo -----------------
   Copyright (C) 1995 European Southern Observatory (ESO)

   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
   modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
   published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
   License, or (at your option) any later version.

   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
   General Public License for more details.

   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
   along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
   Foundation, Inc., 675 Massachusetss Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

   Correspondence concerning ESO-MIDAS should be addressed as follows:
   Internet e-mail: midas@eso.org
   Postal address: European Southern Observatory
   Data Management Division
   Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
   D 85748 Garching bei Munchen
   GERMANY
        --------------- ooo -----------------

7- MIDAS on a CD-ROM
   ------------------
   Our current plan expects the generation and distribution of
   the next patch level of MIDAS 96NOVpl2.0 on a CD-ROM.

   The CD-ROM will include:

   - ESO-MIDAS 96NOV 2.0 sources
   - ESO-MIDAS 96NOV 2.0 binaries for:
        - PC/Linux 2.0.28
        - HP-UX 9000 A.10.10
        - Sun/Solaris 2.5
        - Silicon Graphics IRIX 5.2
        - Alpha/OSF1 V4.0
        - IBM/RS6000 AIX 4.1
   - Calibration data for all platforms above.
   - Demo data for all platforms above.
   - ESO-MIDAS 96NOV 2.0 ready to run from CD-ROM on PC/Linux.
   - ESO-MIDAS 96NOV documentation in:
        - Postscript format
        - DVI format
        - HTML format
   - Complete Slackware distribution (newest release) for PC/Linux.
 
8- Technical Support and Network Services:
   ---------------------------------------
   ESO is not in the position to give active support to individual users 
   outside research institutions neither to support ESO-MIDAS installations 
   on PC/Linux systems. Also, as of the 95NOV release we have reduced the 
   support for VMS and OpenVMS systems. Therefore, users who have problems 
   or questions concerning ESO-MIDAS running on these systems are adviced to 
   use the "midas-users" mailing list for obtaining feedback and solutions to
   their questions from other users. 

        - Electronic mail: midas@eso.org
        - Post: Data Management Division - User Support Group.
                Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2,
                D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen
                Germany
        - Telephone: +49-89-32006456
        - Telefax:   +49-89-3202362

   Other public services:

        - Anonymous ftp: ftphost.hq.eso.org (134.171.6.9)
        - WWW          : http://http.hq.eso.org/midas-info/midas.html
        - mailing lists: 
             midas-announce (for official announcements)
             midas-users    (for general discussion).
          To subscribe send an e-mail to "midas-announce-request"
          or "midas-users-request" with the text "subscribe" in
          the body of the mail.
Prev by Date: ESO-MIDAS Problem Report System
Next by Date: Sources for MIDAS 96NOV
Previous by thread: ESO-MIDAS Problem Report System
Next by thread: Sources for MIDAS 96NOV
Index(es):
- Date
- Thread