Re: new Mark IV control program

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

This looks like progress to me!

OK, I realize that some of you may be constitutionally incapable of writing 
status reports.  Some of you may even violently object.  That is the nature 
of this group.  If no one contributes, I will try to summarize what has 
happened in the last month.  I found the ROTSE status reports to be very 
useful to gage their progress and to understand the problems.  If there are 
any contributions I will assemble them and then send to Michael to be put 
on the home page.  Otherwise, I will try to summarize known progress.  Does 
anyone object to this?

I repeat:

This is something new. I hope that all of you that are doing anything will 
contribute. If you have done something, please write it up in 100-200 words 
(or less). As usual with tass there are no hard rules. I will not count 
words. It would then be nice to collect all the reports and put them 
somewhere on the home page. This is not just for camera owners, anyone who 
has done work can report. It is nice to look back and see how we have 
progressed. It is also useful for a newcomer who wants to see what we are 
doing. I promise faithfully do one every month.

Status report below:
-----------------------------------------

Batavia IL, August 2001 Tom Droege

We have finished the coo-coo clock mount for TOM1. It has been operated, 
and sees stars. Much of the month was spent checking out Stamp/Scanner 
boards and installing the new PROM code which does a better job of reading 
out covered and overscann pixels. We have changed the Stamp code so that it 
can now keep the Declination drive motor energized while the clamp is 
applied. Previously, the Declination axis tended to move when the drive 
motor was turned off.

In the process of testing Stamp/Scanner boards we again found the bad data 
problem. This caused us to test the Memory Boards. Many of the Memory 
boards were found to have problems that may be difficult to fix. This has 
led to a proposal to replace the Memory board with an ECP parallel port 
interface. An initial design has been completed and is being studied to 
uncover problems.





At 10:46 AM 9/3/01 -0700, you wrote:

Michael,

I've got your software built and I've been reading
the code.  Good work.  You've done the part I had
yet to complete.  For example I have a way to use
TCL as a high level scripting language and I do
track the RA and DEC of the camera aim point and
accept "Go To RA,DEC" commands but I don't yet send
commands to the motors.