Thanks for the reply, Bill. A couple more questions.

Must the name of the JMI data file be the same as the name of the
altaz data file, eg, slew_out.dat?

Does the JMI take + and - values and does there need to be a space
between them, eg, will ' 123456-234567' work?

Al

--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, Bill J Gray <pluto@p...> wrote:
> Hi Al,
>
> Hmmm... this one will be a bit tricky, I'm afraid. You're
> basically looking to "mix-and-match" the JMI/MG-III encoder
> system (which doesn't involve motors) with the AltAz one
> (which does).
>
> As you recalled, there's a way to get Guide to read
> "encoder" data from a file, rather than from a serial port.
> The first step would be to put Guide into JMI/MG-III mode. You
> _could_ do that by editing 'startup.mar' and setting 'enc syst 4',
> but it would be simpler to fire up Guide and click on Settings...
> JMI/MG-III.
>
> Next step, to tell Guide to read encoder locations from a
> file rather than a serial port: hit Alt-J and enter
>
> SCOPE_DATA_FILE=slew_out.dat
>
> or whatever file name you want to use. The encoder positions
> must be stored in this file as integer values, 7 bytes apiece
> (for example, " 31415 26535".) Anything after the 14th byte
> in the file is simply ignored.
>
> However, if you're in JMI/MG-III mode, there's no way to
> get those motors moving; Guide will assume that the scope just
> has encoders, without motors. To duck around this, you'll
> want to go to the Scope Control dialog and switch to AltAz.
>
> When you do this, clicking on "Slew Scope" will produce the
> 'slew.dat' file loaded with RA/dec and alt/az and field rotation
> data, with which you're probably familiar. Clicking on "Slew
> Guide" will cause Guide to read the telescope position from the
> file 'slew_out.dat'. Guide will assume that this file contains
> the RA/dec, in decimal degrees. Clicking on the relatively new
> "Toggle Scope Location Indicator" toolbar button will toggle the
> little symbol indicating where the scope is pointed; Guide will
> re-check the 'slew_out.dat' file every second or so to see if the
> scope has moved.
>
> -- Bill