Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 11:11:10 -0600 (MDT)
From: Craig Loomis
Subject: Re: 3.5m Night Log 04Jun00
On Mon, 5 Jun 2000, Frank Deglman wrote:
> Had a DIS/Remark problem.  Could not write files to specified directory in
> FITS format and it would not take the Remark name and numbering for
> incrementing.  Tried restarting_mc. No effect. Restarted the DIS pc. Fine
> after that.
  [ Yikes. I didn't even know you could do this. 'll teach me not to read
documentation... ]
  Some of the file commands described in the DIS online documentation are
for non-Remark users, and don't really apply to MC/Remark users. It looks
like someone tried the "dis file dir=/wherever" command, which led to
trouble.
  Here's what usually happens. The MC is told what directory to save files
in with "imdir /wherever". DIS is not -- it saves files in a known scratch
directory: ~dis/data. DIS exposures are commanded through the MC with
"nexpose", the DIS ICC saves a Mirella formatted image (a two part file with
unsigned 16-bit pixels) in the scratch directory, and the MC finally copies
that file to the user's directory while converting it to the desired format
(usually FITS, these days).
  Only if you don't want to use nexpose (i.e. you are commanding DIS
exposures directly with "dis expose ...") would you use "dis file ..." and
"dis format ...". Just make sure the target directory is writeable.
  I've updated the web page with some warnings.
 - craig