The Microvax systems at the 60-inch and 200-inch telescopes are identical. The computers are called OSCAR and SAM respectively. They consist of a Microvax in a BA123 cabinet, with two scratch disks totaling 450 megabytes, a 6,250 bpi tape drive, a 512x512x8 bit Peritek display, and twelve megabytes of non-Dec memory in addition to the 1 MB that comes with the Microvax. (This scratch disk space is adequate for about 120 800x800 pixel CCD frames.) The two physical scratch disks appear to the user as one logical disk. The 71 MB disk drive that comes with the Microvax is used as the system disk space. In addition to the console port, there are four extra RS232 ports. One of these is used as a link to the telescope control PDP 11/73 computer. In the 60-inch, another is used to control the filter wheel of the direct guider base or the slit wheel of the P60 echelle. At the 200-inch, this port is used to control the flat field lamps. Each Microvax has a four-camera CCD controller hooked up to a DRV11B DMA interface. Status information (including CCD temperatures, exposure timing, and exposure status) is displayed on a monitor using a Peritek VIURAM card. DRV11J interface boards are also available. There is also a programmable clock board (KWV11C). Each Microvax has a MDB printer interface card and a Toshiba printer, which is capable of printing both text or line graphics.
The Microvaxes have two user VMS licenses. They have Fortran and C compilers, and PGPLOT (the Caltech line graphics package written by Tim Pearson). The observing program is an extension of FIGARO (written by Keith Shortridge) called OBSERVING. The coding of OBSERVING was carried out by Chris Lee. The current version numbers are MicroVMS version 4.4, Fortran version 4.5, C version 2.2, and FIGARO version 2.3. The main difference between the standard FIGARO available on DEIMOS and OBSERVING is the addition of the necessary words for observing, and the fact that all files created by reading CCDs are integer files, not floating point ones.
This manual refers to several specific FIGARO commands. However, all FIGARO commands available on DEIMOS should in fact work on the Palomar Microvaxes. If you run across any exceptions or malfunctions, please let me know. It is in using the FIGARO words that you must bear in mind the fact that you are dealing with integer frames. (see section II).
In this document, I have tried to capitalize commands that can be entered into the Microvax. However, it does not matter whether upper or lower case letters are typed.
All words that obtain CCD images whose exposure time is longer than one minute spawn as subprocesses once the actual exposure has started. Thus, during the exposure, the observer is free to use the Microvax to do anything he so desires. The readout will automatically occur at the proper time, the data will be saved, etc. irrespective of what you are doing meanwhile. The observer can also create batch jobs using the words described in this manual (or his own software) which should run merrily along without interfering with an exposure which is underway. (See Section XIVa for a discussion of batch jobs.) It is my hope that all observers will be able, with the material in this manual alone, to take data and leave the mountain with flat fielded frames. The more adventurous or those more familiar with FIGARO and VMS may proceed further in data reduction and analysis.
In addition to this manual, several reference documents are available at each dome. They include the MicroVMS, Fortran and C manuals supplied by DEC, the CCD controller manual, the P60 filter wheel manual, and two volumes of documentation for FIGARO, identical to the downtown documentation. Please consult them as necessary for further details.
The only accounts with passwords on the Microvaxes are TECH (to be used by the mountain technical support staff) and SYSTEM. Each instrument has its own account (none of which have passwords), and the necessary code (if not already present in the system disk) must be loaded into the Microvax from backup tapes by the mountain support staff. The account CCD is that used for observing with the Double Spectrograph and other CCD instruments (except the 4-Shooter) at the 200-inch, and for all CCD instruments at the 60-inch telescope. When you log on as CCD, you are pointed at all the necessary observing software, and the temperature and status displays begin running. If the necessary OBSERVING software is not found, an error message is typed when you log in, and you should alert the mountain technical support staff immediately. (In addition to the system code, including all the device drivers, which is always present, the libraries necessary for OBSERVING to function include FIGARO, PGPLOT, and TVPCKG, i.e., $disk1:[fig23...], $disk1:[pgplot], and $disk1:[tvpckg] must be present.)
I have tested OBSERVING extensively, but undoubtedly there are still some bugs. If you find any, have any comments or problems, or have software that you think might be generally useful and should be added, please send mail to me at DEIMOS. Please use the Microvax MAIL system to report minor bugs by sending MAIL to CCD (it is legitimate to send mail to yourself). We will read the mail frequently via modem and will try to fix problems as soon as possible, although this may not be as soon as you might like, especially for very minor problems. If you read through the MAIL in CCD, you will find all recent complaints and our responses about whether and when they were fixed, although the complaint and the response will probably not be consecutive.
A helpscreen listing the commands can be reached by typing HELP. This
produces the VMS help screen. Keep typing carriage return until you
see a line FIGARO COMMANDS OBSERVE. Then type @OBSERVE, then
COMMANDS, and the full list of commands will appear.