Re: Making the present code run faster

[<aah@nofs.navy.mil>]

>From Michael's description in the troubleshooting notes,
it sounds like he was reading the CCDs in reasonable time,
but taking five minutes instead of one minute to _write_ the
image to disk.  So I think Tom's request to speed up the
reading loop is the wrong one to fix.  Michael, is
this right?
  Then it is not a question of CPU speed, but rather disk
speed or some interaction between the BASIC code and disk
writing.  It is often better to just upgrade the computer
than play with these problems.  Remember: Tom's BASIC program
is just there for testing things, not to run the Mark IV
in a production mode.
  Regarding Andrew's tests:  using Pascal or any other
language for reading or storing is fine, as long as it
can be linked to BASIC or shelled from BASIC.  Rewriting
Tom's entire BASIC code is not the proper way to proceed,
as Tom needs to make changes and doesn't want to learn
a new language.  I'd say at most a program needs to be
written that, after the BASIC program has detected a block
done, is started and reads the memory card and writes a
primitive FITS file before returning to BASIC.  You could
get a little more complex and have the new program read
the log file to get temperature, exposure times, etc.,
but you soon run into handshaking problems that are probably
not worth solving at this point.
Arne