Re: ascom for GUIDE?

Steve LaFlamme Jan 2, 2004

Bill,

I am a long time user of Guide and the fact that you are here on
this newsgroup so often speaks volumes for YOU!!

I want to put in my vote for ASCOM communication for Guide as The
Sky just doesn't cut it for me as my astro software of choice.
I cuurently use The Sky to move the scope, but Guide is my far
favorite.

Please have an ASCOM/Guide download ready for my birthday
(February 8th). Hehehe.

THANKS for a great product!!

Steve



rhope th--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, Bill J Gray <pluto@p...>
wrote:
> Hi Don,
>
> It's at least a "possible" item:
>
> http://www.projectpluto.com/future.htm#ascom
>
> As is mentioned there, the big advantage of ASCOM would be
that it
> would enable me to stop worrying about the various ways in which
scopes
> are controlled, expanding the range of supported scopes a bit.
(Not
> enormously, since so many scopes are already LX-200 or Celestron
> compliant. And I can't simply throw out the scope control code I've
> got; some scopes supported in Guide, such as encoder-based
systems,
> are not supported by ASCOM. But it would help.)
>
> Jim, what Don is talking about is the fact that when Guide
needs to
> control a telescope, it accesses the serial port, then releases
it for
> use by other programs. A lot of less "civilized" software grabs the
> serial port when it starts up, then doesn't release it until it's
shut
> down. So while software X is running, software Y is unable to
access
> the telescope.
>
> The approach used by Guide is helpful in some limited conditions
> (ones where all the programs agree to behave nicely, and to not
grab
> the serial port more than they have to), but it's not really
sufficient
> in some cases. In theory, if Guide works through ASCOM, more of
these
> "conflicting software" problems could be resolved.
>
> -- Bill