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ZL3AI > APRDIG 06.06.03 15:01l 232 Lines 9074 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: TAPR Digest, May 31, 6/8
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From: ZL3AI@ZL3VML.#80.NZL.OC
To : APRDIG@WW
Subject: Re: Email Line Length
From: "Gregg G. Wonderly" <gregg@skymaster.cytetech.com>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 15:42:47 -0500
X-Message-Number: 28
>NO! Many mail systems now use proportional-spaced fonts (different letters
>have different widths) so anything columnated with spaces is guaranteed not to
>reproduce properly on some systems.
>
>Every time you post the satellite predictions, I have to copy the paragraph,
>paste it into a word processor and then set the font to Courier or Andale Mono
>to make it readable.
This is the issue that most people don't understand. People deciding that
Email had to be pretty text with colors, size of text changing etc, failed
to recognize that there is a simple issue here. Not everyone will in fact
use a computer that can load a microsoft font, let alone a microsoft
document. The non-attachment portion, the body, of an email message should
always be composed using fixed width fonts. If you really think you need
to use some fancy font or graphical composition, send it as an attachment,
but don't count on people being able to read it.
Microsoft knows full well that the more features that they put into email
composition, the more people will use them, and depend on them. This means
that others, who don't use their products will be forced to in order to use
email with others who use microsoft products.
This is one of the many ways that the computing environment gets driven
down the path of single vendor. Just becomes some email program lets you
do something doesn't mean that the person who receives it will be able to
understand what you sent them.
....unless you do the smart thing and just stick to the simple text that
worked for the first 3 decades of email without any real problems...
And, as another point, I knew Ned Freed (the co-creator of the MIME
specification) personally when I was in college, and he really didn't see
how email would ever be an important mode of communication. The company
that he started after leaving the position he had at the university,
managing a VMS system, sold PMDF, an email server for VMS, and later ported
to Unix (now bought and owned by Sun Microsystems). All these attachment
viruses and content abuse in general, I blame on him :-)
Gregg - Using MH and exmh through VNC to my desktop...
-----
gregg@cytetech.com (Cyte Technologies Inc)
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Subject: Re: APRS Internet System Design Philosophy
From: John Hansen <hansen@fredonia.edu>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 17:17:37 -0400
X-Message-Number: 29
>The two features of java that can sell most people to use java are stack back
>traces provided at exception points, and the fact that you don't have to
>manage memory allocation.
Not to mention documentation. If only we could get the folks at Microsoft
to take a look at the JavaDocs and rewrite the Visual Studio documentation
so that it could be read by mere mortals, it would sure make my life a lot
easier.
John Hansen, W2FS
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Subject: APRSdos problem
From: Earl Needham <needhame@yucca.net>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 16:09:58 -0600
X-Message-Number: 30
OK, got an interesting problem with APRSdos --
Using a Zenith laptop with DOS on it, no Windows, Linux, or anything
else. Booting into APRS826, we get the following:
A$:Seattle
C$:
ES$in Yval
ERROR 68 See TROUBLE.TXT. Hit ENTER to resume or Q to quit?
Trouble.txt indicates some sort of comm port problem -- but I'll be darned
if I can figure out how to fix it.
Help?
Thanks,
Earl
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Subject: Re: findu.com & TinyTrak3
From: Steve Dimse <k4hg@tapr.org>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 18:14:19 -0400
X-Message-Number: 31
On 5/31/03 at 8:23 AM k7ftp@commtechreview.net (James Bell Jr. [K7FTP]) sent:
>It seems that UI-view and WinAPRS see the status text users enter, so is
>findu.com not looking at something it should be?
There are two separate text entries. First is the actual status packet, on
which starts with >. This is the one findU displays as status text. Then
there is the comment text which may be appended to most APRS formats.
Typically Mic-E trackers do not send status messages, but only use the
comment text. These appear in findU in the raw packet display. Byon chose
to use the status text for version info, and leave the status in the Mic-E
packet. This is why the display appears as it does.
Steve K4HG
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Subject: Re: APRS Internet System Design Philosophy
From: "Joseph C. Bender" <n8xre@benderhome.net>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 18:48:06 -0400 (EDT)
X-Message-Number: 32
AE5PL Lists said:
>While Java VM's won't make it to a floppy disk, C and C++ are not
>portable between operating systems (yes, I have programmed extensively
>in both). They require recompiles and they require special
>considerations depending on what OS they are run on. Java is, to my
>knowledge, the only widely available, free application language that
>apps are 100% transportable as-is between OS's. To point, javAPRSSrvr
>and javAPRSFilter are being run on Windows, Linux, Unix, Max OS 9, and
>Mac OS 10 without modification. Sorry, no DOS version of a JVM that I
>am aware of.
Assuming that you've got a VM to run on that platform natively. The BSDs,
up until recently, had no JVM/JIT that ran natively, and the current
codebase is still very much beta. The reason it's taken so long for this
to happen, AFAIK, were terms in Sun's license that made it impossible to
modify. So much for free.
And, as someone who has programmed extensively in C/C++, you should also
know that "portability" is usually defined as "source" portability and not
binary portability. Many UNIX/UNIX-like software packages are distributed
as source only, using autoconf to manage differences between operating
systems. GCC is available for almost any platform I can think of,
including DOS. The trouble most people get into is using too many
OS-specific library features. A properly written C app written with
portabilty in mind will not have these problems.
>It will never be as efficient as well
>written C or C++, but then you can't drop a compiled C or C++ program
>into any operating system. Those are the ramifications of compiled vs.
>interpreted.
Red herring. As long as there's a compiler available, that code, if the
programmer did their job right, will compile and run.
There's also binary emulation available in most UNIX-like operating
systems to run Linux binaries and their libraries. There is also Cygwin,
which will add a Linux-like compatibility layer to Windows, letting you
compile *gasp* a Linux app to run on the Windows system.
--
Joseph C. Bender
n8xre at benderhome net
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Subject: D700 *& APRS
From: "Robert W Wood(K8AGH)" <rwwood47@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 19:7:48
X-Message-Number: 33
With the d700 in packet mode tnc, and connected to APRS+SA, the GPS is
connected to the d700 GPS port. I would like to track myself on the screen
along with other statios. I can go to the TNC screen, and see the info
coming into the screen from the GPS, but I cannot get the softwart to use
the info to plot my position on the map...
Thanks in advance..
Bob
K8AGH
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Subject: Re: findu.com & TinyTrak3
From: Bob Bruninga <bruninga@usna.edu>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 20:15:31 -0400 (EDT)
X-Message-Number: 34
>K7FTP>APT310,WIDE2-1,qAo,K7UHP:!4021.54N/11146.76W>142/000/>www.commtechre
>view.net or k7ftp@arrl.net
>
>The "status" in the packet above is actually just a beacon comment and
>not a status report. See Chapter 8, page 33 of the APRS spec for the
>position format. For the status report, see page 80, Chapter 16 of the
>APRS spec....
Im' never sure if the SPEC got it right, but here is the way
Position-Comments and STATUS were supposed to work.
1) They are two different things.
2) But if there is no "status" received from a station, then APRS clients
were supposed to substitute a default string into the STATUS field
as follows in this order:
a) If no-status on file, accept an ID packet
b) If no-status on file, accept the last UI packet (matching no other
APRS format)
b) If no-status on file, then take the position comment
c) If status is on file, then only update if a NEW STATUS is received.
I'm not sure if it came across this way in the SPEC.
bob
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Subject: Re: APRS Internet System Design Philosophy
From: Miller Scott Contr 30SCS/FTI <Scott.Miller@vandenberg.af.mil>
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 00:27:43 -0000
X-Message-Number: 35
Comments below...
-----Original Message-----
From: AE5PL Lists
To: TAPR APRS Special Interest Group
Sent: 5/31/03 4:22 AM
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