Unix style SID support software available

As a long time Unix user I didn't like it that the support software for the SID monitor is dependent on the windows operating system. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with the software itself. I'm just not a fan from Microsoft products and I actually didn't have a Windows box running. We brought one up (donated by my employer) and used that only for the SID monitor. I promised to replace it as soon as possible by something else. Since we don't have Excel I made a small script on top of gnuplot to display the data.

Getting tired from the complaints my colleges made about the noise the box made, it was "temporarily" located in the conference room, I finally took the plunge and wrote a little program which collects the data from the monitor. It stores it in a file in a format so it can be uploaded to sid-ftp.stanford.edu as usual.

The current version of all this is not a slick package. However, I think it can be used without too much problems. I want to make it publicly available but I would like to have some feedback before doing so. If you want to give it a test ride, send me mail using the adres "sidmon31 at xs4all.nl". I'll send you a tar ball (ca. 1.3 Meg) with the sources (so some assembly is required :-)). It is developed under FreeBSD 6.2 and compiles on Linux and MacOS X as well.

Note that this is a "Friday afternoon project" so it might take some time before I react. Just pester me again when it takes too much time. Enjoy!

Another new group

Hi! My name is Gloria Weber and I am a second year science teacher at Parkway Center City High School in Philadelphia. The freshman Astronomy class received their SID monitor in October and will start the antenna build next week. Wish us luck!