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20000801: Old OS/2 McIdas System

>From: "E. A. Ripley" <address@hidden>
>Organization: University of Saskatchewan
>Keywords: 200008011914.e71JEFT24329 McIDAS-OS2 issues

Earle,

Hi, Earle.  It has been a long time since we have chatted.

>I realize that I am virtually 'on my own' trying to keep this system going,
>but since I have now retired (supposedly) I would like to keep it
>functioning for as long as I can without any updating. At some point I will
>have to close it down; what I wonder is whether that point is now!

I am afraid that after the datastream change for to use of PNG
compression for the imagery in the Unidata-Wisconsin broadcast, the
OS/2 box will be completely obsolete.  It would not be that big of a
chore to convert a PC over to something link Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris
x86 and run your data ingestion/decoding/map generation on it.  The
project is most certainly easier than trying to figure out what to
modify on the OS/2 machine to keep it going.

>In the last few weeks the machine has been crashing with increasing
>frequency as it receives undecipherable data and tries to deal with it. Is
>there any easy way for me to filter out these data and extend the life of my
>system?

I believe that there are ways of specifying what you request (Don is the
expert on this, but he is not in today), but the conversion of the
image compression scheme will nullify that shortly.

>I am ingesting GOES 8 & 9 imagery and basic surface and upperair
>data and all worked well until some new data came on line causing my OS/2
>machine tries to beep, or send something to the printer, or spawn numerous
>child windows, or just crash.

There are so many things being added to the datastreams, that it is hard
for really active sites to keep on top of things.  In your case, it would
seem to be almost impossible.

>If there is any simple way I can filter out the offending data, I will do
>so; if not I will have to close down my operation.

Again, the image stuff will be dying within a month or so.  Is the conversion
of a PC to a Unix OS out of the question?

>Earle Ripley (address@hidden)
>Earle A. Ripley, Professor
>Department of Plant Sciences
>University of Saskatchewan
>Saskatoon, SK  S7N 5A8
>Tel: (306) 966-4955
>Fax: (306) 966-5015

Tom Yoksas