Xref: utzoo comp.unix.xenix:5949 comp.sources.wanted:7363
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!dartvax!creare!gda
From: gda@creare.UUCP (Gray Abbott)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix,comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Need scientific plotting software for Xenix
Keywords: Xenix, graphics, science
Message-ID: <1045@creare.UUCP>
Date: 12 May 89 20:51:50 GMT
References: <2261@pur-phy>
Reply-To: gda@creare.UUCP (Gray Abbott)
Followup-To: comp.unix.xenix
Distribution: na
Organization: Creare Inc., Hanover NH
Lines: 49


>Does anyone have, or know where I can acquire, a high level plotting package 
>designed for engineering and scientific use, which runs under 
>SCO Xenix 286 (2.2.3)?  I am a scientist using Xenix in a laboratory setting
>... Since I am trying to spend my time doing science, I do not have the
>time to write my own high level code.  
>Most of the commercially available packages are designed for business 
>use; however, my needs do not revolve around pie and bar charts.
>The few available engineering/scientific packages are very expensive
>(>= $1000) and hence do not fit into my limited budget.  There seem to be
>quite a few reasonably priced packages available to run under DOS but none 
>that I have found to have been ported to Xenix...


We are currently writing a package for the National Cancer Institute which
addresses this problem.  The system, called ML/e, is an upgrade of the
MLAB (Modelling Laboratory) program used by many NIH researchers to analyze
and graph laboratory data.  ML/e includes a sophisticated mathematical parser,
curve-fitting and optimization programs, and a graphics system, called YAGS,
all of which communicate with each other through Unix pipes.

YAGS allows you to interactively design plotting formats for your data, or
you can use one of the "canned" formats provided, adding your own custom
features.  You work with high-level objects, like Datasets, Labels, Tic Marks,
Axes, and 3D surfaces and contours, all the way down to lines and text.  You
can manually set positions, sizes, etc., or you can set them up in the ML/e
parser.

The parser is a kind of super-calculator, which works with vectors and
matrices as easily as real and complex scalars.  It provides lots of
standard mathematical functions and also allows you to add new ones through
external programs, using connecting pipes.  It has programming features for
flow control and so on.

This code is not yet available, but it should be on the market sometime in 
the next year.  We may need some beta sites; send me e-mail if you're
interested.  I don't know what the price will be, but it should be
"competitive".


>Is anyone else even trying to do laboratory science on a Xenix system?

Good question.  We were originally targeting large time-sharing systems
and workstations, but we did the development on a 386 Xenix system, and
we wonder if there's are potential users on that kind of system.  It seems
that a lot of scientists and engineers using PCs prefer MS/DOS.  Who is
doing science with these Xenix machines?  What kind of science?  How about
engineering (we are using ML/e to solve problems in mechanical and fluids
engineering)?