Re: NEC-LIST: TCL/TK and BLT

Roger A. Cox WB0DGF writes:
>
> Pardon me for my ignorance. The "Jiffy" by W5GFE sounds interesting,
> but what is BLT and what is TCL/TK. I assume that it must have
> something to do with UNIX, which we don't have and likely will NEVER
> have.

I see that Dave has already answered your question better than I could
regarding TCL/TK and BLT. There are plenty of binaries available for
all sorts of OS's. At the University here we are able to run the
"Jiffy" stuff on a Windows 95 box if we want to (we don't!) We also
use TCL/TK for student advising and for simulation of simple computers
on a screen that lets students watch the registers as a program runs.
All of that runs just whereever we happen to have the code. (Unix or
Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 or Windows NT or even off the Novell net, or
other ... makes no difference.)

However, please don't speak too fast concerning Unix. There is a
large body of unix and linux stuff out there, and in spite of the
doomsayers it seems that a lot of folks who want powerful operating
environments are finding an awful lot to recommend Unix/Linux. Some
hams, in particular, are likely to want exceedingly productive and
convenient environments, and as someone said "there is nothing so
professional as a dedicated amateur."

Give the current cost of unix/linux (free!) either in commercial form
(Free SCO for instance) or the multitude of Linuxes (Leni ?) lots of
folks are trying it and ... liking it a lot! If you don't have some
form of Unix at work, you are still in a good position to have a
really professional setup at home. That is actually sort of odd, now
that I think of it ... .

If you are attracted by having a couple of terminals running at the
same time, both doing real work, as well as driving your packet
station and running a connection to your ISP, with only a modest
computer, you really should not overlook unix/linux.

At any rate, have fun with it, whatever it is! Hope you enjoy
"Jiffy".

73 de Bill W5GFE

-- 
Bill Walker Ph.D.
Chairman, Dept. of Computer Science
East Central University
Ada, Oklahoma 74820-6899
e-mail:  bw_at_cs.ecok.edu 
phone:   580 332 8000 ext. 594
FAX:     580 332 4616