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The official 97NOVpl2.0 release of MIDAS available now!
Dear MIDAS users,
As from today the official 97NOVpl2.0 release of MIDAS is available
on our ftp accounts.
Best of success and enjoy MIDAS!
- ESO-MIDAS group.
MIDAS 97NOVpl2.0 official announcement
--------------------------------------
1- What's new or upgraded in MIDAS 97NOV ?
2- Platform availability
3- Source and binary distribution for MIDAS 97NOVpl2.0
4- MIDAS 97NOV documentation
5- MIDAS under the GNU General Public License
6- MIDAS on a CD-ROM
7- Technical Support and Network Services
1- What's new or upgraded in MIDAS 97NOVpl2.0?
----------------------------------------------
- old and new (long) descr. formats are both supported, use SET/MIDAS
to switch to old descr. format; however, this is not really recommended
because the new format is backwards compatible. But if you have
compelling reasons go ahead.
- Support for displays supporting true color mode (i.e. having 8 bits per
red, green, blue color component) has been implemented. A new 5th
parameter has been added to the INITIALIZE/DISPLAY command to set up a
display for true color mode.
- normally double quotes (") are taken as special characters to enclose
spaces in a single token; using a backslash in front will make the
double quotes be treated like a normal char, e.g.:
Midas> write/out \"this is a quote\"
"this is a quote"
Midas> write/out "this is no quote"
this is no quote
- command OUTDISK/ASCII has been added to convert Midas images to ASCII
files which contain one data value per file record, i.e. the pixels
are stored as a single column. Several data reduction packages require
ASCII input data to be in that format (e.g. MATLAB).
- Random number generator which does not need the NAG library was added
- Correction of problems in the OVER/ERROR command with
logarithmic error bars and with using sequence parameter.
- Plot (meta) file names are now case sensitive
- Context CCDRED: a number of command have been updated
- Context CCDRED: a bug in the command for applying the
illumination correction was.
- Context ALICE: fix problem with printing the displayed
spectrum
- A bug was fix in the command GET/GCURSOR. The values are
now correctly appended to in the descriptor.
For details use the command: help [News] or click on [News] topic in
the graphical user interface.
2- Platform availability.
-------------------------
MIDAS 97NOVpl2.0 has been installed and verified on the following
platforms:
- SUN Solaris 2.5 - HP HP-UX A.10.20(2) - PC Linux/2.0.28
- DEC OSF1/V4.0 (1) - SG IRIX/5.2 - IBM AIX/V4.1
- Alpha(AXP) Open VMS V6.1 and V7.0, Fortran V6.3 and DECC V5.3
- VAX Open VMS VMS V6.1, FORTRAN V6.4 and DECC V5.3
(1) On OSF1/V4.0 MIDAS does not work when running on a "Advanced File
System" (AFS) due to a bug in the OS which was reported to Digital.
In the meantime there is a patch available from DEC - for details
contact Carlo Izzo at Max-Planck (izzo@rosat.mpe-garching.mpg.de).
(2) The packages "pepsys","romafot" and "irac2" are not available with
the binary version of MIDAS for HP-UX 10.20
3- Source and binary distribution for MIDAS 97NOVpl2.0
------------------------------------------------------
As you may already know, MIDAS is available under the GNU General
Public License since 95NOVpl2.0. Since then we are not requiring
anymore the prior MIDAS User Agreement in order to get access to MIDAS
sources.
97NOVpl2.0 is also available in binary format for all supported
platforms. Binary copies of MIDAS are already compiled
and ready to run. Installation is reduced to just the tuning of
some configuration files.
Source and binary copies of 97NOVpl2.0 are available in our
anonymous ftp account:
- Ftp host: ftp://ftphost.hq.eso.org
- Ftp account: "ftp". Password: <Your mail address>
- Directories: /midaspub/97NOV/sources (MIDAS sources)
/midaspub/97NOV/linux (PC Linux/2.0.28)(1)
/midaspub/97NOV/hp_ux (HP HP-UX A.10.10)(2)
/midaspub/97NOV/alpha_osf (DEC OSF1/V4.0)
/midaspub/97NOV/ibm_aix (IBM/AIX 4.1)
/midaspub/97NOV/sg_irix (SG IRIX/5.2)
/midaspub/97NOV/solaris (SUN Solaris 2.5)
- Files: README.<platform>
97NOVpl1.tar.Z
(1) The binary of MIDAS for Linux/2.0.28 was done in a slackware
distribution with the 'f2c' (fortran_to_C converter) and not with
'g77' so no Fortran library is necessary. This binary copy of
MIDAS has also been tested and verified in a Linux RedHat 4.2
distribution (Linux/2.0.30).
(2) The binary of MIDAS for HP-UX 10.10 has been tested and verified
to run also on HP-UX 10.20.
For a proper installation of MIDAS from sources follow the procedure
of the installation document provided in PostScript (installunix.ps.Z)
and DVI format (installunix.dvi.Z)
MIDAS is distributed on all platforms with Graphical User
Interfaces GUI using the Motif dynamic shared libraries, except for
Linux where all GUIs are linked with the static Motif library.
4- MIDAS 96NOV documentation.
-----------------------------
There is no new release of documentation for MIDAS 97NOV. The 96NOV
is used instead.
ESO-MIDAS documentation is available in Postscript and DVI format
(eventually also in HTML format) from our "anonymous" ftp account:
- Ftp host: ftp://ftphost.hq.eso.org
In our "anonymous" account:
- Ftp account: "ftp". Password: <Your mail address>
- Directory: /midaspub/97NOV/doc (link to /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: Command Description
env.ps.Z ESO-MIDAS Environment.
agldoc.tar.Z AGL Documentation
ididoc.ps.Z IDI Documentation
midas-faq.doc.Z ESO-MIDAS Frequent Asked Questions
midas-html.tar.Z ESO-MIDAS complete documentation in HTML
In particular cases printed copies and updates of documentation
can also be obtained from ESO. If you absolutely need hardcopies
of the documentation please contact the User Support Group at
ESO/Munich.
5- ESO-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 be freely
redistributed on certain conditions. As a consequence of this
distribution policy User Agreements between research institutes
and ESO will not apply as of ESO-MIDAS release 95NOVpl2.0 and will
not be prolongated when they expire.
A short statement of the GNU General Public License as included in
all relevant ESO-MIDAS files 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 Massachusetts 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 - User Support Group
Karl-Schwarzschild-Stra_e 2
D 85748 Garching bei Munchen
GERMANY
--------------- ooo -----------------
6- ESO-MIDAS on a CD-ROM
------------------------
Our current schedule anticipates the creation and distribution of
the patch level of MIDAS 97NOVpl2.0 on CD-ROM by the end of June
1998, or shortly thereafter.
The ESO-MIDAS CD-ROM will contain the release 97NOVpl2.0 and latest
patch files, and will include source code, binaries, documentation,
and verification procedures. The complete list of what is on the
CD-ROM is given below.
- ESO-MIDAS 97NOVpl2.0 sources
- ESO-MIDAS 97NOVpl2.0 binaries for:
- PC/Linux 2.0.28 or higher
- HP-UX 9000 A.10.20
- 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 97NOVpl2.0 ready to run from CD-ROM on PC/Linux.
- ESO-MIDAS 97NOV documentation in:
- Postscript format
- DVI format
- HTML format
- Complete latest RedHat distribution for PC/Linux.
- Xephem latest release with sources and binary for PC/Linux
Research Institutes can order the CD-ROM directly from the ESO-MIDAS
Group by just sending an email to midas@eso.org. Others are kindly
invited to contact ESO Education and Public Relations Department at
ips@eso.org
7- Technical Support and Network Services:
-------------------------------------------
ESO is not in the position to give active support to individual users
outside research institutions 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 advised
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
Other public services:
- Anonymous : ftp://ftphost.hq.eso.org
- WWW : http://www.eso.org/esomidas
- 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.
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