rtp1@tank.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert) (12/15/89)
In the Dept. of Geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, I
am trying to set up a lab to support our educational program
(graduated and undergraduate) in weather and climate issues
(El Nino, ozone hole, greenhouse effect, etc.). The object is to
have easy-to use workstations allowing students (introductory and
advanced) to tap into current and historical weather data. The
Unidata system developed for the Universities Corporation for
atmospheric Research provides the software needed to capture the
data stream from a satellite feed and archive it on a Unix file server,
but the problem is in the workstations used for graphical display.
Currently, this market is monopolized by the PC-McIdas software
running on MS-DOS machines. Unidata does not support the MacOS,
even though it is better suited for the task. We have no interest in
getting involved with MS-DOS (or even worse, OS/2), as we are strictly a
Mac and Unix operation. Also, Unidata is moving its support to OS/2
and dropping support for MS-DOS. Since the cost of an OS/2 workstation
to run PC-McIdas now exceeds a Mac IIcx, there is a real opportunity for
Apple to break into this expanding market, and do us some good besides.
Basically, we want to set up a demonstration site using MacIIcx's
running the NCSA Image tool software, and also the NCARE metafile
viewer, as the basis for an educational lab. We hope to be developing
a Hypercard front end to the whole Unidata analysis package, using
Gatorshare for NFS file sharing. I can get money from the university
for setting up the satellite link and for a Unix file server and
optical disk storage, but I cannot get enough money for the Macs.
Basically, we need a donation from Apple of something like 4 color
MacIIcx's (one with a 19" color monitor, preferably), with 4MB RAM
and 40meg hard drive. Is anybody at Apple reading this? If not,
what is the proper arm of Apple to apply to for such an equipment
grant? We could work out some arrangement to have any software we
develop made available to other universities and nonprofit organizations.
Please reply via email to rtp1@tank.uchicago.edu