At 01:49 PM 1/29/2003 -0000, you wrote:
>Hi Jeff, <<ASCOM>> I can't get SNP 4.x to work with either my N8 or
>WinCTC (emulates LX200). Both those telescopes + DSC on my beast Newt
>work very well in ECU. How can ECU get it right and ASCOM can't?
Although this is getting off topic for the Guide list, I'd be happy to
offer a couple pointers. In my world an "N8" is a focuser, and there is no
ASCOM driver for that focuser as yet, so I can't help there. With regard to
WinCTC, I've used this successfully with an ASCOM driver before, and with
SNP 4.x. Which ASCOM driver are you using? Is it the LX-200 driver? And
what version of the platform do you have?
Why don't you e-mail me directly with the full information and I'll try to
determine what is going wrong and help you fix things. This is a genuine
offer - but I don't want to provide tech support for products that aren't
Bill's (and also aren't mine) *on this list*, but I don't enjoy seeing
people have problems, either - especially when its been done plenty of
times before and I've had no problems in precisely the same contexts.
>I have also determined that software vendors that
>blindly use ASCOM (SNP for example) don't do the
>system clean up necessary after driver failure
>with the result of the system hanging.
Geez, I can't believe anyone would assume that Bill would "blindly" do
anything with his software. He's a top-drawer programmer and, while
everyone goofs from time to time and releases the occasional bug, Guide
isn't known for unstable shutdowns and system crashes. Software that
blindly uses telescope drivers of any kind (or GUI calls or whatever) have
those problems, but Guide ISN'T one of them. Memory management is a pain,
but yeah, the vendors do have to go to the trouble!
>As another note, standards are nice, but as soon
>as something becomes a standard it's usually obsolete.
You say that as though the ASCOM standard is technological, like an IEEE
specification. It isn't - the standard describes how to write the soft
interface on the server application and says to trap errors on the client
application and shame on you if you don't. Real basic stuff, just enough to
allow interoperability. I know new technological concepts are scary (I'm
using a five year old mailer precisely because I'm scared of a new
technological concept called Outlook), but the facts are more profitably
considered than stereotypes.
--
Jeff Medkeff
Sierra Vista, Arizona
http://www.roboticobservatory.com/jeff/