The FR80 was conditionally accepted on Wednesday 7 May. After several days of adjustments, satisfactory abutting was obtained on both 35mm and hardcopy cameras. Once this had been done, the Acceptance Tests proceeded without too many headaches. The outstanding problems are:
The intention is to start an informal service on Monday 12 May for internal users with an aim of providing a complete service at the beginning of June.
A complete record of the performance of the FR80 during the Acceptance Tests is being compiled by RB. This will be agreed with III and published.
RB had outlined a schedule for the FR80 prior to 1 June. This was agreed apart from the need to process colour output at least once a day. It is likely that this work would be run on the FR80 in the day and processed during the evening.
The schedule allowed a period of 1½ hours in the morning for software development and another period of 2½ hours in the afternoon. If there was no work to be run on the FR80, additional time might be available. However, RB was responsible for the operation of the FR80 and extra time could only be made available with his agreement.
In the last few days it has become apparent that it is simpler to change cameras than to change movements in the combined camera. Consequently, it was agreed that the standard 16mm black and white camera would be the precision camera rather than the combined one. Default settings and the user documentation for all the packages would need to be changed to reflect this.
RB agreed to issue a User Note prior to 1 June indicating the schedule for camera changing and film processing.
In the last few days it has become apparent that there are a number of bugs in the basic FR80 software. It is hoped that RB can produce a complete list of these by Wednesday 14 June for action by III. It was agreed that any malfunctioning would be reported to RB.
Currently, LOADGO is forced to re-read certain records as the system returns to a default setting of 800 bpi. After a long discussion it was agreed to standardise initially on 7-track, 556 bpi tapes for LOADGO from both the 1906A and 360/195. The system could be modified so that these tapes could be processed without operator intervention. Once experience has been gained, it is likely that changes will be needed to FR80 software, the output from packages and SPOOL itself to allow either 7 or 9-track tapes. Definite proposals need to be made in the next two weeks.
JMR has implemented a dummy SYSLOG program, A considerable amount of code for the logging system has been written by RWW and can be tested once the machine becomes available. WDS is in the process of adding the £ sign to the character set and making the modifications to the Displayer to allow large characters to be generated.
The main pieces of work required are:
It was agreed that the £ symbol would be character number 374.
Once the image sizes on all cameras had been measured, there was a need to update the packages and associated documentation. RB and PMN were required to produce a complete specification of image sizes by 12 May.
No one envisaged any problem in making the necessary changes to the packages. It is hoped that all the documentation for the packages will be with the typists by next week.
The Hewlett-Packard character set for SMOG is complete although there are problems in compiling it. MBK is implementing the vector family commands for the Hewlett-Packard.
The SPOOL system is complete for 7-track tapes and a User Note should be finished next week.
MFC now has a version of SMOG working on the 360/195 producing 7-track tapes. Tim Pett would be using SMOG to produce FR80 output from MUGWUMP. SCFOR output on the 360/195 can be produced either using the MUGWUMP interface or the SCFOR simulator. It is likely that both of these will be available by 1 June at the latest.
It is unlikely that HASP spooling will be available for at least a month so until then jobs will be run on a one-off basis, writing directly to magnetic tape.
AWB has implemented a utility on the 360/195 for viewing FR80 output on a Tektronix.
Implementation of POLYGRAPHICS has been delayed waiting for a version of SMOG.
Eventually, a decision needs to be made on the format of 9-track tapes. RL would prefer these to be standard labelled tapes. However, this would require a considerable number of changes to FR80 software. One alternative is to have a standard label followed by non-standard data. Another is to have a standard tape which has short records as dummy filemarks. This would require less modification of FR80 software. There is some evidence that this approach has been used by III in the past.
