Happy new year ! I wonder how things will work out,
- I just don't have time for troubles, so all my computers is backdated
to
1st of December. ( coward :)
Maybe I am wrong when I come up with new subject titles all the time ?
I wrote a note, mainly to Dan about thise "drop-boxes" and other way
to do things, and I wonder if I just have been a fool ?
If we had a little program that would take the subject tittle, we might
in fact sort our own mailboxes ? I mean - if we did a better job
in sticking to some form of discipline about it. What I have in mind,
is to take subjects and maybe link up all the mail regarding it, - then
we would have a draft for a html page about the subject that could be used
for FAQs, and "cookbooks."
Anyone have an idea how to make such a sort program ? Maybe just some
simple script ?
This title, - is in response to Ray with his "backplotter" - as I think
we said something about this for a long time ago.
This is a good idea, - and here is a few things about it:
I have installed EMC on a 486, and there is plenty of power on
such a platform. But, - I would keep this very simple and not overload
it with a lot of other processes. ( I would like to drive it with
NML over a network, just have not come to that yet )
And I have not upgraded the EMC software. I have hoped to try
out TkEMC, but I would hate to make a new build of everything. If
any have some short guidelines on what I should do to download it and use
it without a recompilation of EMC, it would be great.
Back to the "backplotting" subject:
First I had the same idea, - and I wondered about reading it in
on another "monitor" computer - just to avoid making to much time taking
things on the same computer. But I dumped this idea.
One of the things I used when I made the 486 work for me, was another
program Fred has written: a small program that write and reads from
the shared memory. Just use it on the same address as the fifo buffers,
and you can read out all the data without looking at the the parallel port.
It will also work on a servo driven version. ( of course this will load
the EMC computer a bit, but the format should be very much in the NML format,
so it would be perfect. I think this is the same as how the logging
function is written, - so you may use that instead. ( the shmex example
program is small and a good paper on the subject, and is valuable to play
around with - for educational/exercise purpose )
While I worked with the 486, a lot went wrong. So it complained and dumped several things on my screen. NML and RCS dumps, - which shows that these work internally to EMC. The thing is, you should be able to have to update a look ahead function. This could just be another color on the pixels on the screen.
( I have had this thought all along, - so it felt like a kind of "backfire" - but as Ian, - I do have some fire proof underwear too :)
Revised editor in tcl:
Ray, I have been thinking of writing you a few words about this for a while. Sure we are interested, and I like to see that some of us keep on "pushing" :) But I hoped that Dan soon would have some words about the web sites, and that we could organize some way that would allow us to comment, to join in on several subjects, and get out Linux boxes running. I may offend a few here, but in my honest opinion, I think Linux will be the best platform for the future.
A few words on Linux:
The "bad" thing about it, is that I think we all have some trouble with it because there is such a terrible amount of things you can do with it, and it is a "developers" platform. In dos I used several compilers from Borland, - and that was easy. You didn't have so many choices :)
tclVogle:
This is something I wanted to take another look at today, I just wanted to read the mail. I know very little about tcl/tk and making other programs under this new Linux environment. There is also something called Togle, that uses the OpenLib library. But at the moment I wrestle with TclVogle.
I do wonder where I could find some help in understanding the "make"
stuff, and how this program really binds to tcl/tk. I have been
telling about it before, - and I hate some of the canvas stuff in tcl/tk.
This "backplotting" idea, - do IMO hit on the same limits I see in the
tcl/tk canvas again. Sure you could do a lot of things, writing several
routines to place axis, outputs, in tcl, but it would just be too slow.
You could convert a lot of this to C and speed up the thing, - and that
is what tclVogle has all about, and with a bunch of added stuff.
It would also be show how to bind C functions to tcl/tk. Vogle is
free of any strings, you could in fact rename it and build a whole
new library that would coexist with tcl/tk, wish, and Xlib. And you have
fonts, drivers etc.
And - it is small and simple.
( The KDE desktop uses the "norwegian" library Qt, - which takes up 4-5 Megabytes alone )
I may be totally of track, - maybe I am just stupid, don't know. ( I am just going a bit from memory, so never take what I say to serious ) But, ....
I believe Fred et al, wrote the TkEMC because they believe this
would make it easier for us to follow, change and play with. It is
slower, but the added benefit of being more user friendly and to tinker
with for our needs, is why I think they did this. But they have based
EMC on some core stuff, like NML. Instead of using a full CORBA implementation,
which would just give too much overhead for any RT related stuff,
the have a slimmer version that has focused on the needs at hand.
Using Vogle as another "slim" packaged, I think that it should be
possible to patch up a tk/tcl package with the tools we need. ( like adding
NML into such a library, RCS stuff, etc. ) You have a lot of
other stuff as well. Expect is also something that I think have roots
from NIST.
I would like to see a tk/tcl environment or C, instead of Java for
the NML/RCS "stub" programming generation as well. ( This may be because
I have had trouble to get the right version of Java, and have it compiled
to use their software tools for this )
In fact - if it was possible, - I would have liked to contribute
with some of my scarce dollars, for an organized forum, where we could
get some more tutoring and help from NIST people. I am a bit crazy,
I love things that spins around, that can be put into use, and what we
deal with is not just personal hobby. All of us, and many more will use
these gems, and be able to automate small workshops. I think this
is just some of the goals that is the pillars of NIST. And my "gospel"
is that Linux is part of this,
because it gives a fair opportunity for all. In my opinion -
this is in the spirit of how it should be. A democratic right for - well
I guess I could include the constitution here :)
What on earth am I doing ? A new year speech ? Hmm... must be a sudden attach of "Arnieitis" again :)
Well, I am an american - and there is a lot of things I don't like at all, but I think the words that this nations is built upon, should be held high, and we should all rise and honor that spirit. That is a "gospel", equal rights and opportunities. I just wish that I could be a greater part in it. So if anyone wants to "flame" me for this naive little speech, I hope that they will consider giving me a little leeway on new year :) ( but it okay to laugh - Arnieitis is a condition to laugh about :)
So what should we do in the new millennium ?
Well, I would like to see a lot of smiling faces, making
all kind of fun stuff, let the chips fly, and if anyone have
some ideas how
be shall accomplish that, I am all ears.
The only sad thing is, I would have loved to be there in your workshops and see it :)
( I had promised myself to celebrate new year in USA, - but
so much for my promises :)
//ARNE