It has not been many days since Ashtech Solutions 2.6 went on my Windows 2000 computer at work but I finally purchased the upgrade for this WindowsXP Home Edition here at the house.

Some of you have been asking me whether it works on XP.

I crunched my first GPS project here at home with it in the early hours of this morning.

This is a project I did several days ago with version 2.5. It is a little triangle with a loop length of almost 490 kilometers. This morning I used the precise emphemeris to crunch the data again. I am not going to brag about my results but will only say that my money was well spent.

Yes, I did pay for the upgrade.

I do not think it was only about the precise ephemeris. I read those release notes. There are some new bells and whistles in there that I can trace right back to this message board.

One suggestion for you guys who keep asking about using it on XP: Get a nine pin serial port. Don't listen to the folks who say that nine pin ports are old news. I listened patiently while I got lectured about how primitive it was to require the use of 9 pin serial communications. I went home and counted one and only one USB device in my house. Look around your shop and count how many data collectors, GPS receivers, and other gadgets connect to those com ports then count your USB devices. You can buy computers that use WindowsXP that have com ports and USB ports. I did.

I have since purchased a few more USB gadgets but have not yet thrown away the things that use 9 pin serial cables. Just call me primitive.

I can't guarantee that AS 2.6 will work on WindowsXP. It works on mine.

Phil,
I have been running AS2.5 on XPpro since June and haven't had the first problem with that combination. You're absolutely right about having a serial port. The only USB devices I have (camera and printer) also provide connections for a serial port. So there.

Any salesman that says the com ports are dead, doesn't know what's going on in the real world. Yeah, USB's are nice but demand for serials will remain due to the number of peripherals still being used. I built my last computer and have 6 USB and 2 serial ports. Hopefully, that'll cover it! :-}
Jimbo

Phil, et al

Do programs such as the NGS INVERSE work on the XP platform? I'm not running XP but I'm sure will be in the future (no hurry as far as I can see though). I was under the impression that XP and other newer "Gates" OS's would not run dos programs.

J.D.

I thought I had done it before but just went to check again. Inverse will work on my XP computer. I made it work just by double clicking on inverse.exe in the Explorer window.

There is a lot of software that will not work on this XP computer so the old Windows98SE computer is still being kept alive here beside me.

That old one started with Windows 3.1 and has gradually evolved to where it is now and where it will stay until the next time it dies.

I actually do read some of those newsletters from Microsoft and recently downloaded some things called Powertoys for Windows XP. One of them is called Open Command Window Here.

It looks like a DOS window and it was the only way I could figure out how to run that Hatanaka decompression program that I needed to use the RINEX data I scrounged from some place or other. Hatanaka is another "industry standard" that makes life just one little bit more complex.

Phil

When it comes to all this computerized technology (every thing made today?), I stagger along one step at a time (blindly going where most others have already been). I'll cross the XP.xx or ME.xx bridge when I come to it. I still have a solar obs program written "in-house" in 1986 in "Basic" that I never use, but would if I had to. Never mind I have the exact same reduction programs on HP42s and 2 HP48's. It's just hard to let some things go, isn't it?

jd

I'm just getting more extinguished.

JD,
The simplest and easiest to use database program, PFS for DOS, is still chugging along on my computer that has XPpro. In fact, an old DOS Cogo program called TRAV is still used on occasions on the same box. TRAV was originally developed for the Apple II and transported over when IBM got off their duffs and made the PC.

Oddly enough, PFS runs/searches much faster on my Win98SE box at home than it does on the XP machine. Both are P4's and the XP has 512MB of memory while the Win98SE has 128MB. Go figure. Says alot about the OS on each unit.

Please don't go to a WinME machine. I have heard more horror stories concerning that OS than any other that Microsoft has released. It certainly handles memory in a strange way: it doesn't release memory when programs finish the majority of the time.
Jimbo

now you're making me hurt. I too used PFS File for about 13-14 years...from 1984 til 1998+/-. I would have been content to continue using it for all my job/project files. I was under the impression that very soon all the old dos software we were som committed to would cease to run on the new "faster" platforms so I went in search of the new improved version of PFS File. The search took me to a company that was obviously run by folks who were probably in diapers when PFS File was a hot product as they had no idea what I was talking about (even though they were the company that currently owned the old PFS stuff). Anyhow, to make a long story even longer, I ended up buying their windows version of this great new stuff to replace my old PFS data base dos software. I had one guy spend many many many (redundant enough), a whole lot of hours starting from job no. 001 in 1983 to current (1998 at the time) creating the database files. This great new windows version stuff is really crap comp[ared to my old dos PFS File. PFS File could search by any number of data fields filled in. The new wonderful windows replacement stuff moves by one, and only one field at a time. I have no idea now how to get all this data onto another new file search system if I wanted to. The old PFS stuff could narrow down a file within seconds, whereas the great new windows replacement into multiple minutes or longer.

I miss dos

J.D.

Well, I knew you had some class since you worked with the Locus. But since you obviously appreciate the wonder of PFS, you are a man of good taste. :-) You're absolutely right about PFS for Windows; better garbage has never been made but for PFS for Windows.

I tried it, said 'What's up with this?' and went back to PFS for DOS. Called myself improving once and setup a database in Access for our records. Simple form, simple query. Damn thing was so slow, I went back to PFS for DOS.

Export your data out in dBIII format and the old PFS for DOS will import it. If you want that Access template, let me know and I'll email it. But, I wouldn't want to slow you down even more!!
Jimbo



Modified By Jim Littlefield, Jr. on 10/21/2002 at 10:16 PM