Re: Special Session - Computer Appli

[tdc@ehssun.lbl.gov (Ted M. de Castro)]

>>I decided to stay on the server since I thought my intended use (which I
>>should have mentioned before) may get someone with more experience and
>>advise on my proposed general application.

NO PROBLEM - I just thought if the discussion got involved and NOT of 
general interest that we might take it elsewhere.

>>Yes, plots output in ascii characters (I think I have a couple here in
>>SuperBASIC, but the punched-paper tape keeps jamming the drive slot. :-) I
>>may have print-outs in the files up there, but I am not enthusiastic about
>>typing in a few hundred lines of code (converting to current BASIC 
>>languages when I haven't used BASIC for 15 years).

I now know what you want and MAYBE there is something like that out there!  
I'll look and let you know!

Gee - I remember writing such a program in Fortran back in high school in 
the 60's on an IBM 1620 - source deck / object deck and all!!

>>Sorry about not being more specific about my intentions, but several weeks
>>ago I was putting some data into a sci.energy message and it struck me 
>>that I could make a better point with a quick graph. Spent a little (very 
>>little) time trying to make a quick ascii graph of simple data. I 
>>remembered getting many graphs from some pretty good BASIC and FORTRAN 
>>programs off of the old teletype machines (even wrote a couple). Of the 
>>various plotting programs on the RADSAFE BBS and a couple of quick looks 
>>elsewhere, none seemed to be able to print ascii-character plots 
>>(obviously not graphic screen prints). I
>>thought that if I could print an ascii-character plot to an ascii file I
>>could use that as a tool for ascii communications.

I Understand!!  Interesting application!! I'd just UUENCODE a graphic and 
include or attach it to the message - but then it would not be readable 
online!!  I can see where what you are looking for would be useful - for 
quick simple graphs!!

I'll look.

I think I make know of a simple calculator/plotter program circa mid 80's 
that does just that.  Also there ARE a few programs that "attempt" to 
convert a graphic to a character draw.


>>Not from ascii, to ascii. Since you said FROM ASCII, when I saw it was an
>>.lzh extension I'm not familiar with, and 222K, I decided to defer the
>>download.

>Also XYPLOT is an EXCELLENT plotting program to make WORKING plots - ie. 
>studying data - not presentation quality.

>>I got that among a number of others, but it also did not output ascii
>>(unless I missed something.

Nope - neither are what you seek and _I_ am the one who missed something.  
BUT I still recommend both programs highly for ANYONE doing graphic 
plotting.

To decompress the .LZH file use LHARC - it is also in tdcpub - not sure if 
it is in UTILS or if I have a compression dir.  BUT I made SURE it was 
there!  It is a common compression method.

>>(I expect I have narrowed the universe of potential programs 
>>significantly.)

That you did indeed!!  BUT I dimmly recall .........