From: "doobisary" <tjp314@pacbell.net>

Date: August 12, 2012 12:23:52 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: Macs and Science




--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Milton Aupperle <milton@...> wrote:



I watched the Curiosity NASA Live feed on my XBox 360 (Microsoft had  

an app for that)  Sunday night and noticed that many people had Macs  

sitting in front of them. But after watching a while, they only used  

them for scheduling, check lists or notes etc. They didn't use them  

for control or access to Curiosity - just sitting there partially  

open. Tim would know the answer to that if Nasa actually does use Macs  

for real science or not.


I've  been so busy since the landing that I havent had a chance to check in here.  I've never counted, but I would bet that more than half the science team on Curiosity uses Macs.  I know that the camera PIs are Mac people, and use Mac Aps they've written to write sequences for the cameras on the spacecraft.  Our mission planning tools are "bilingual", though, running either on Macs or PCs.


I personally use ArcGIS software for a lot of my work (I'm "Localization Scientist" for the project, and a geologist on the Mastcam/MARDI and MAHLI camera team).  But I run that windows-only application on my Macs via Parallels and frequently transfer files back and forth from one OS to the other.


I am officially putting the potential shutdown on the Astro IIDC web  

site  today. The "100 new user line in the sand" is drawn, so on  

September 15th if it isn't met Astro IIDC is done.


I'm very sorry to hear this news.  I'd hate to have to go back to using Registax in Windows again (it's been several years and several cameras ago, though, so I may be unaware if there have been recent developments that might have been made).


I certainly will keep my current Mac systems (my home computers are were I have Astro IIDC installed) running as long as possible.  Thankfully, perhaps, my Macbook Pro is only about a year old now.  But even my G4 powerbook - about 6 years old - runs the latest version just fine, last time I used it for the Venus transit.


-Tim.