AAVSO Computer History Outline and Notes JAAVSO Vol 1 No 1, Spring 1972, pg 25. Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Data Processing by Charles Scoville. IBM "Port-a-Punch" looked at by Data Processing Committee, but deemed too slow and error-prone for use. Scoville made an arrangement with Darrian High School to use its key punch machine in the off hours. The Committee suggests that other such arrangements could be made to work in High Schools and other places of business. Conversion of cards to reports must be done at the keypunch place as HQ has no resources to do this. Again, other places with such equipment may be willing to help suggests the Committee. Computer will not read an underline so denoting positive and negative declinations is done with the use of the "&" character for "+" a carry over from earlier key-punch machines used in the beginning of the program at HQ. THIS INDICATES THAT DIGITAL DATA COLLECTION PRE-DATES 1972. Details on reports are given (50 lines max per page. Standard format of Position, Name, JD Date, Magnitude, and Observer initials). ================================================ JAAVSO Vol 1 No 2, Fall 1972, pg 80 Annual Report of the Director, 30 Sep 1972 "Our key-punch training program for student help continues to pay off, and we have some very efficient operators. We are getting more nearly up-to-date with our punching. During the summer we worked on observations made in the Spring of 1971, which means we have punched over one million observations. With the help of several centers where local observations are being punched, we can now see in the not too distant future the time when we can punch observations as they come in, and at the same time start work on the old reports from 1911 and earlier." -Margaret W. Mayall ================================================ JAAVSO Vol 2 No 2 Fall 1973, pg 92 Annual Report of the Director, 30 Sep 1973 "During the college year, our student key-punch operators worked diligently and efficiently and, with added help of a smaller summer staff, we are now punching observations recieved early in 1972. Many of our observers are now punching their own observations in our standard format. This is a big help to us, and will make a sizable difference in the number of cards we will have to punch in the future." "Our special thanks go to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for allowing time to the AAVSO on their computing machines and to Owen Gingerich for his help in negotiating it." -Margaret W. Mayall ================================================= JAAVSO Vol 3 No 2 Fall 1974, pg 72 Minutes of the General Meeting on 19 October 1974 "From that report Mrs. Manyall noted especially that since AAVSO membership-list information has been put on IBM punch-cards, it has been possible to assemble information rapidly concerning dues in arrears, and other data." -Clinton B. Ford Annual Report of the Director, 30 Sep 1974 "The main project of this year was to try to finish Report 30. The listing of all the observations, editing and computer plotting for them had been done last year. When the light curves were prepared for publication and marks of maxima and minima were being put on the plots, we realized how much time would be saved if this were done by computer. Barbara Welther from Smithsonian Astrophysical Observator of Center for Astrophysics [sic] came to our rescue and improved the plotting program to do just that. The data have now been run using the improved program." "Another major job in our data processing has been putting on magnetic tape the published data of Reports 28 and 29. A very effcient program of Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has been made available to us by Robert Fitzpatrick to store and use, whenever needed, about 130,000 observations of these two reports, which now occupy only half of one magnetic tape. WE have four copies of this tape and for security reasons have placed them in four different locations in Cambridge." "I am happy to announced that we are now entering September 1973 reports on data cards. Along with that, as of April, we have been entering incoming data each month on computer cards. These cards have been verified, sorted and listed and the plotting of observations are now being done from these listings." "Our special thanks to Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory of Center for Astrophysics [sic] for allowing time to the AAVSO on their computer and to Owen Gingerich for making this possible and for always supporting the AAVSO, to Barbara Welther for her continuous help in improving and revising our computer programs." -Janet Mattei ================================================ JAAVSO Vol 4 No 1 Spring 1975, pg 47 Preface of the Treasurer's Report "The cost of our IBM equipment has risen substancially, as have punch cards." -R. Newton Mayall ================================================ JAAVSO Vol5 No 2 Fall 1975, pg 114 Annual Report of the Director October 1974 - September 1975 "The prime project of the year was Report 30 [...] It contains 132,000 observations by 495 observers, in the form of computerized 10-day-mean light curves of 446 mostly long period variables." "Along with Report 30, we have also started Report 31. About 100,000 observations are now ready for computer editing, where each one is checked for correct designation and date. Next, all observations will be listed and checked against hand-plotted light curves before the final computer plots are obtained." "This year we also tried to find a substitute for hand-plotting of our incoming observations, which increased 20% from 1973. Our very capable student-assistant, Richard Strazdas from MIT, using the basic idea of our existing program, developed a method whereby light curves are obtained as density curves in which the number of observations at specific magnitudes are printed at each date. [...] The program will first list all observations and then plot the light curve. When this format meets all the desired requirements than all incoming data will be plotted four times a year in this fashion, observations will be edited and final light curves will be obtained at the end of each year. This new method of computerized density curves will enable us to study the plots and whenever possible notify observers whose observations do not agree with the others." "At present, the incoming observations are entered on computer cards, verified, sorted, listed and plotted each month." "As to the earlier data that are not processed, we now have only a two months' gap in 1973 not entered on cards; otherwise, all observations since 1960 are processed. The exchange of our keypunch and verifier for a machine that has a memory and can do both jobs, has facilitated our data processing immensley." "Another major project has been the computerization of our mailing list and labels. Thanks to Robert Fitzpatrick of the Computer Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Richard Strazdas, a program has been developed in wich the individual names on our mailing list have been separated into various classes, i.e., member, observer, subscriber, etc. This method enables us to call up the names in any category for which we need labels. Another benefit of the program is the ease of adding, deleting, or changing addresses. Since February, we have been using these computerized labels in all our mailings." Also again thanks to SAO and Owen Gingerich for computer time, as well as Barbara Welther for programing and data processing at large. -Janet Mattei ========================================= Hill, Robert S. 1977 JAAVSO, Vol6, No 1, "AAVSO Data Processing: Ten Years of Computerization," p 12. ========================================= JAAVSO Vol 6, No 2 Fall 1978 Minutes of the General Meeting, Nantucket 14-15 October, 1977 "...a commendation to Headquarter's Assistant Richard Strazdas for his work in streamlining the data processing..." "Miss Barbara Welther, the original computer programmer for the Association's system for publication of ten-day mean light curves, gave a short talk on the current use and up-dating of the system and reported that Dr. G.B Field, Director of teh Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has approved the use of Smithsonian computer facilities for the reduction of AAVSO data." -Clinton B. Ford Annual Report of the Director "Accomplishment: Major computerization. Our data processing procedures have been tremendously improved, and much that we were formerly doing mechanically or manually is now done by the computer. The master-mind in the creation of our new computer programs for sorting, merging, and plotting data has been Richard Strazdas. I extend our deep appreciation and thanks to him for this achievment." Again SAO, Owen Gingerich and Barbara Welther are thanked. -Janet Mattei ============================================ (Switching to highlights mode. See actual article for details. You have the damn thing after all!) JAAVSO Vol 7, No 2 Fall 1979 Annual Report of the Director for Fiscal Year 1977-78 Accomplishments: 1) Processing, editing & partial plotting of Report 38/39. This took 5 months for 500k observations. Printout was 36" in size and one mile in length. Mira data edited by Robert Hill & David Drucker. 2) Processing the "gap" data between 1966-1971. Once programs were perfected this processing only took 3 weeks. Data between mid '71 to '74 are on tapes but have not been verified yet. 3) Due to financial difficulties current processing of data fell behind. Grant from Clint Ford and contributions by Cy & Emily Fernald came to rescue. Incoming data is now processed without delay. Robert S. Hill refined plotting programs to handle large data volumes better and was in charge of data processing for Reports 38/39. David Drucker responsible for plotting, compilation of data for special requests and for intial editing of data on Mira variables for Report 38/39. Grateful to Center for Astrophysics and Dr. Owen Gringerich for help & support. Barbara Welther is thanks for recommendations to data processing and computer funding. She got additional funding to do the work for Report 38/39 and the gap data processing. Center for Astrophysics staff Robert Fitzpatrick & Joseph Finn are thanked for assistance in processing volumous data. ===================================================== JAAVSO Vol 8 No 1 1979 Director's Interim Report for Period ending March 31, 1979 Observation keypunching at HQ now up to date. 2 new CETA workers hired thanks to new Clint Ford grant. Publication of Reports 38/39 delayed due to changes in the computer system at Harvard Observatory. ===================================================== JAAVSO Vol 8 No2 1979 Annual Report of Director for Fiscal Year 1978-1979 Converted all data & programs to the DEC VAX computer. Processed incoming observations, verified data between 1971-1974, & processed data for the "Extension of the Studies of Long Period Variables." The Center for Astrophysics (the AAVSO is still using their facilities) converted from a CDC 6400 to a VAX 11. The AAVSO, through Dr. Owen Gingerich & Barbara Welther, are granted time on this machine. All programs had to be converted and tested. This took weeks cause the AAVSO had no full time programmer. Member and data processing consultant Richard Strazdas went to work with assistants Christopher Walton & Sandra Galejs, both students. With help from the Center for Astrophysics Computer Center staff the programs were converted. Several new programs were developed. Current observations, thanks to Ford grant, processed without delay. Time permitting verification of data between 71-74 still being done. Reports 38/39 not published due to the computer switchover. Now that this switchover is done this publication is a priority. (EOW joins staff.) Richard Strazdas continues to be an indispensable data processing consultant. He was invaluable in this year of conversion. Again regular thanks to Center for Astrophysics folks. ======================================= JAAVSO Vol 9 #1, 1980 Interim Treasuer's Report Between 1 Oct 1979 to 31 March 80 (Theodore H. N. Wales) Expenditure: Data Processing $1,630.59 ======================================= JAAVSO Vol 9 #2, 1980 Director's Report Fiscal Year 1979-1980 Observations are keypunched, verified, and processed within a month of receipt thanks to Clint Ford grant. Thanks to NSF Grant and computer time from Center for Astrophysics and the work of EOW data between 66-74 325 boxes of cards, 650k observations has been processed. Thus ALL DATA FROM 1960 WHEN OUR PROCESSING BY COMPUTER STARTED TO THE CURRENT TIME, SORTED BY STAR AND DATE, ARE ON MAGNETIC TAPE AND IN MACHINE READABLE FORM. Goal is to have all data since AAVSO founding in machine readable form. Reports could not be published. The Calcomp plotter on the old (CDC) system has not been interfaced to the VAX. The available Versatec plotter doesn't give reproducible quality graphs. Searching for new plotter. Found FRS80 Graphics Computer from AVCO Computer Services. Plotting programs converted by Richard Strazdas. Regular people at Center for Astrophysics thanked. ======================================== JAAVSO Vol 10 #2, 1981 Directors Report Fiscal Year 1980-1981 Incoming dat keypunched and verified on IBM cards, copied to magnetic tape, checked, sorted, and listed using the DEC VAX computer at the Center for Astrophysics. Started to work through processing data from 1911 to 1960. This is 2.5 million observations. Begun with keypunching data from observers whose last name begins with "C." FUNDING FOR MICRO-COMPUTER AT HQ. HQ has been taken over by cards. Need system to go directly to floppy disk. In-house computer needed to maintain publishing rate. Significant time spent researching for a computer system. Member experts consulted. Funding received by Research Corporation. The system to be installed is an Ithaca Intersystems multi-user computer with graphics terminal, plotter, and printers. Data entry will be from key to floppy disk. System is compatible with DEC VAX which will be continued to be used for big jobs. Grateful to Research Corporation for their grant. Data entry operator Bethune Kelly & Barbara Silva are mentioned. Regular thanks to Center for Astrophysics and personnel. NSF grant for processing the gap data. ========================================= JAAVSO Vol 11 #2, 1982 Director's Report Fiscal Year 1981-1982 Via the Charles M Townes Fund grant from Research Corporation HQ bought 2 Ithaca Intersystems micro-computers with CP/M OS, Dec 1981. This is compatible with the CfA VAX. Two systems: 1) single user system with computer, terminal, graphics terminal & plotter. System is used to plot data on screen, check, edit, and finally plot the data to paper. 2) Multi-user system with three terminals, two for data entry, one for word processing, used to prepare the JAAVSO, correspondence, updating the mailing list, and other office jobs. Incoming observations are now stored on 8" disks and processed using the CfA VAX. Due to the installation of the new system at HQ we are a few months behind in processing. The project to computerize the data between 1911 to 1960, beginning with folks whose last name began with "C" was suspended when the data entry person involved went on personal leave. Budgetary restrictions further delayed it until the end of the fiscal year when Clint Ford came to the rescue with a grant. Theodore Wales also provided a grant to purchase needed disks to accomodate the data. The project is projected to take several years. Various notes on Reports 38-40. Data entry operators Barbara Silva & Bethune Kelly are mentioned. Regular thanks to CfA and staff. Thanks for the Townes Fund Grant. Thanks to NSF for grant to completely process and put in machine readable format data between 1966-1979. Theodore Wales bought a terminal and a pair of disk drives for the new HQ computer system. Thanks to Dr. Richard French "for writing the computer program and to his student Sherene Aram for the computer editing of our data for Report 40." Thanks to Wellesley College for making computer facilities available to Sherene for the summer research grant she got. Treasurers Report 1 Oct 1981 to 30 Sep 1982 lists Data Processing costs of $1,014.18. ========================================= JAAVSO Vol 12 #2, 1983 Directors Report Fiscal Year 1982-1983 Overviews computer use by HQ from 1960 on. Data Processing of observations is current. Data processing of data from 1911 to 1960 is now going again. RASNZ VS section sent their data to be included in the AID. Report 38 finally published. First with computer plotted light curves of 490 stars. Reports 39 & 40 going through error checking. Data entry personelle have not changed. Regular thanks to CfA. Treasuers Report lists Data Processing costs of $2666.61. =========================================== JAAVSO Vol 13 #1, 1984 pg. 23, Data Management at AAVSO Headquarters by EOW! History summarized by Hill (1977). Describes history from 1967 when first IBM cards were introduced to HQ. Data management procedures unchanged until 1981 when in-house computers were aquired. The single greatest change this fostered was the change in temporary recording medium from punch cards to disks. Savings in space and efficiency cannot be overestimated. Monthly inflow of observations - 15k to 20k - is too big for Ithaca Intersystems system to handle. CfA computers are still used. CfA had PDP 11/60 and CDC computer. Upgraded CDC to VAX 11/780. Note! In 1984 CfA removed PDP entirely and put diskette readers on the VAX enabling the AAVSO to read the diskettes directly into the VAX without having to put them through the PDP first. Also at this time Charles M. Jones, an MIT student working part time as a programmer converted a program from DEC format and elaborated one of the data-editing programs allowing it to be wholey used on the Ithaca system cutting down on the time needed to edit variable star data. Computer Workshop held by AAVSO as part of the 73rd Spring Meeting in Ames, IA, 25-26 May, 1984. =========================================== JAAVSO Vol 13 #2, 1984 5M observation added to AID. Data processing of incomming observations current. Computerizing data from 1911-1963 going slowly due to lack of funding and limited staff. Still working on folks with last name starting with "C." This is about 20% of the 2m observations to be computerized. Reports 39, 40, 41 abandonned. Start to publish 20 year LC of specific stars as monographs. IAU loves this. Max & Min of LPVs from 1950-75 is compiled. Data is now being checked. John Percy uses AAVSO data to analyze the behavior of rho Cas. Data given to him via computer? Ask EOW. Staff computer programmer Charles M. Jones (hired through Mayall Assistanceship) is mentioned. Data entry operators unchanged. Usual CfA thanks. Graph of observations and observers (numbers) given on pg. 99. Treasurers Report gives Data Processing expenditures at $1424.12. ============================================= JAAVSO Vol 14 #2, 1985. Birch St. aquired. Current obvervations are current, but increasing data load has increased from 2 to 3 weeks to transcribe. Archive data from 1911-1963: The 25% that had been entered on cards were put to tape. 100k more observations have been transcribed bringing this job 25% done. Perkins Fund for matching grant for the project accepted. This will enable the hiring of 2 full-time data transcribers for the project. Computers being used to produce Monographs. Using programs to check observations for accuracy. 3.5m observations of 100 stars have been extracted. Charles Jones developed a data-checking program to be used on the DEC VAX that his helping in speeding up the preparation of the monographs. Data for the monographs is first checked by computer program, then by assistants, finally by JAM. Computer plotted light curves are being produced via the Ithaca system. IT staff now consists of programmer Charles M. Jones, and data entry operators Barabara Silva, Margarita Vargas, and Michael S. Bickford. Usual CfA thanks. ============================================== JAAVSO Vol 15 #2, 1986 Annual Report of the Director for 1985-1986 Move to Birch St. delayed usual monthly processing by several weeks. However all was quickly caught up. Archival Data from 1911-1961. One full time staff member and 2 summer students were hired. Progress is being made. Now entering observations from folks whose last name begins with "E." (Mike Saladyga first mentioned!) IT Staff: Programmer Charles M. Jones. Data entry operators Barbara Silva, Margarita Vargas, Young Lim, Michael Bickford, & Gabriel Menchaca. ============================================== JAAVSO Vol 16 #2, 1987 Annual Report of the Director for 1986-1987 Incoming observations processed on schedule. Exploring the possibility of having observers submit observations on disk or via modem. Archival Data from 1911-1961: Full Time Data entry operator Young Lim and staff did 300k observations. Lim moved to CA and wanted to continue work. He was given 500k observations and a computer on loan from the AAVSO. The 2 part time students are no longer on staff. Lim also created a data entry and verification program to allow faster data entry and eliminate 90% of the errors that can occur when keying in data. NSF funding for the Archival Data project is being sought and if successful will hire additional staff. IT Staff decimated. Programmer Charles Jones graduated and moved to NY. Michael Bickford and Gabriel Menchaca, part timers left for positions closer to their schools. Young Lim moved to CA, but is working remotely on data archiving. He's the only one left! CfA regulars thanked. (Amazing how they've not changed!) Treasuers Report lists Data Processing at $3066.17. ============================================== JAAVSO Vol 17 #2, 1988 Director's Report for 1987-1988 An increasing number of Var Star groups wish to include their data in the AID. "It appears by default that the AAVSO is becoming the center of variable star data in the world. Using the new IBM-PC compatible computer, we are now able to be connected via modem to the DEC VAX at CfA to process current data. Investigating ways of processing monthly data at HQ and member Mark Malmros is helping us convert our computer programs to the new system. We'll continue to hse the VAX for archiving our data and for working w large volumes of observations where we need large storage and memory capacities. Data Archiving 1911-1961. Still going. Lim working from CA has entered 445k observations this year. In Dec of '87 Doug Van Orsow was hired. He's working on the "K"s. The project has reached 65% completion. NSF proposal for this project was not funded. IT Staff: Data Entry & Plotting Asst, Barbara Silva. Current & Archival Data Entry Techs Doug Van Orsow & Young Lim. Regular thanks to CfA staff. Perkins Fund thanked for grant to continue the archival data computerization. Thanks to Theodore Dunham, Jr., Grants for Research in Astronomy from the Fund for Astrophysical Research for grant to purchase an IBM-PC cline to enable us to recieve disks from observers with like equipment, to be able to connect to CfA via modem, and the 40MB hard drive in the IBM PC. Thanks to the Kenilworth Fund for grant to purchase laser printer and scanner for IBM-PC clone to do our own plotting of light curves. ====================================== JAAVSO Vol 18 #1, 1989 "A Method for Transferring Photoelectric Photometry Data from Apple II+ to IBM PC" by Harry D. Powell, James R. Miller, Kipp Stephenson Received 20 June 1989 "When the AAVSO Photoelectric photometry program adopted the IBM PC for data storage and reduction, we were already committed to the use of an Apple II+ for data acquisition. Using a procedure reported by Jones (1984, BYTE (Feb), pg. 331) we have developed a technique for transferring the PEP data from the Apple II+ to an IBM PC for storage on 5.25" diskette which is sent to Howard Landis, AAVSO PEP Committee Chairman, for reduction and archiving." ====================================== JAAVSO Vol 18 #2, 1989 Friday, 27 October 1898. A workshop on Computers and Variable Star Research was held. Director's Report for 1988-1989 More and more observers are reporting their observations either on disk or via electronic mail. These observations are reformatted as needed to conform to our data format, using customized in-house software. Current observation processing is up to date. Last year purchased an IBM PC clone for increasing data processing. Since Spring data processing has been done at HQ thanks to the efforts of Jim Belfiore, student, and now Member, who converted the major portion of the VAX FORTRAN programs to run on the IBM PC clone. Once the data are processed they're transferred via modem to CfA for storage. The improvements in efficiency has been essential in order to provide AAVSO data support for the HIPPARCOS mission. Currently looking for a large-volume storage media for the microcomputers at HQ so that we may transport all the data currently at CfA to HQ for rapid access. Archive Project 1911-1963. Continuing. 77% done. Until last Spring the LC for each star in the observing program was updated by hand. We didn't have facilities at HQ for large data storage (now they have the 40MB hard drive in the PC) and we didn't have a computer program to plot our data in a format and scale compatible with existing light curves. This was solved by staff members Edward Nguyen and, particularly, Grant Foster. HIPPARCOS project was a major data project. Computer readable observations covering 20 years for 250 stars, together with 75 year AAVSO data on the dates and magnitudes of max & min of those stars were used to predict light curves. These curves were compared with recent data and discrepancies corrected. AAVSO data processing procedures were revised to provide data support for the lifetime of the satellite. IT Data Entry Technician Barbara Silva, Technical Assistant Grant Foster, Edward Nyguen, part time assistant. Thanks to NASA for funding HIPPARCOS data support. Regulars at CfA thanked. Treasurers Report put Data Processing costs at $12772.26. ======================================= JAAVSO Vol. 19 #2, 1990 Director's Report for 1989-1990 A bit of history: Mayall made the decison in 1967 to start putting observations on cards from 1960 on using HCO and CfA computers provided by the two usually thanked. Added two hard drives bringing storage to 600MB. Installed cartridge tape drives for large storage capacity in the microcomputers. Brought all of data from CfA - 4.5m observations from 1960 on - to HQ where they were stored on cartridges, copies made, and saved in different locations. Continuing to store data on magnetic tape as well. Programs developed to 1) quickly access data from data files of about 3600 stars in the observing program, 2) Plot LCs to any scale and time, with or without a background grid. 3) Superimpose various data files on same graph, 4) Evaluate data on-screen and identify any observation in the LC with the Obscode. 5) Obtain mean LCs of a star's data. 6) Fit higher-order mean curves to any LC. 7) A program of data entry and reporting of monthly observations for Observers Archive from 1911-1963: 90% done. HIPPARCOS continues to be major data support interest. NASA continues to fund. High turnover again at HQ. IT is Programmer Grant Foster, Data Entry Tech Barbara Silva. NASA thanked for funding HIPPARCOS. Usual folks at CfA thanked. James Belfiore thanks for converting computer programs from DEC VAX to MSDOS so we can process our monthly data using only HQ computers. CRITICAL COMPUTER MILESTONE CHART ON PG 178!! Treasuers Report puts Data Processing at $15561.30. ===================================== JAAVSO Vol 20 #1, 1991 "A Method of Creating AAVSO Observing Charts by Computer" by Scovil & Leitner, Robert A. This paper details the purchase, in 1989 of an IBM PC clone (25MHz/386, 8MB RAM, 387 math coproc, HP scanner, CD-ROM drive and STScL 1989 on CD-ROM and an HP LaserJet printer for work on star charts. The paper then goes on to detail the program found and developed for the work. "Computer Image Processing Techniques for the Production of AAVSO Observing Charts" by Weingarten, Gilbert. This paper expands on Scovil(1991) above with regard to what the AAVSO computer does with chart production and how. ====================================== JAAVSO Vol 20 #2, 1991 Director's Report for 1990-1991 Via two grants from NASA computers have been upgraded as follows: 1) Added 600MB of disk space. 2) Provided a terminal or stand-alone system for each staff member. 3) Networked all workstations to main computer for file access. Programs developed to merge monthly observations into archives easily, to archive the data with security, and to manage and access the 4.5m observations on 3600 stars quickly & easily. Every fortnight a complete backup is done to cassette tapes and copies made to different locations. Apparently the Ithaca systems (where are they now?) had 586K of RAM. Weird. HQ is now reported to be independent for computer processing. CfA used only for backup. The last hurdle was plotting, solved by Grant Foster. Data processing is up to date, good because HIPPARCOS takes time. Had first reported data problem. A bad disk caused some data loss. Disk was replaced and missing data is being recovered. This is about 50% done. New programs developed to check, compare, and archive data so that "no possibility that data would be lost without being noticed." Data Archiving from 1911-1961. Finish is in sight! IT Staff: Grant Foster, Computer Specialist. Barbara Silva, Data Entry Tech. (Sara Beck mentioned for first time!) NASA thanked for HIPPARCHOS data support. Perkins Fund thanked for grant to complete the computer archiving project. Regular CfA people thanked. Treasurers Report gives $15276.78 to data processing. ===================================== JAAVSO Vol 21 #2 "From Archives to Analysis Computers Redefine the AAVSO Mission" by Grant Foster Paper goes through how computers are being used at the AAVSO for data analysis, not just data archiving. Details two programs - EDIT and GFT - that Grant wrote that seem to be a precursor to today's ZAPPER and VStar. These two programs were later combined to produce ZAP. Director's Report for Year 1991-1992 We now have 10 IMB-compatible MS-DOS computers (286, 386, 486) all connnected via a LANtastic LAN. Foster has written programs to: a) Plot on-screen the data for any star. b) Expand any portion of the light curve. c) Identify observations of the observers on the displayed light curve. d) Evaluate an observation and change its status. Observations now coming in via mail, diskettes, email, and fax. Observations are thoroughly checked. We use 13 different computers to fully process and check the data. Missing data of last year fully recovered. Procedures and programs in place to assure the integrity of the data. All of the Must Haves, Would Likes, and Larger Scale Would Likes written by the Computer Working Group in April 2, 1988 have been accomplished (see report for details). AAVSO is also at this point putting information on Compuserve and is looking to do so on GEnie. Archive of Data 1911-1963 is 97% complete. IT Staff: Grant - Programmer. Barbara Silva - Data Entry Technician. Possibly also Technical Assistants William K. Mackiewicz, Machael Saladyga, and Sara J. Beck. Regulars at CfA thanked. Treasuer puts Data Processing at $15,268.18. ============================== JAAVSO Vol 22 #2, 1993 Directors Report for 1992-1993 Archive project 1911-1963 is completed! The 1.9m observations are entered. Now they have to be processed! The plan is to process them in the same manor as the monthly observations, around 25k/month. At that rate they would be processed in 3 years. Thanks to another Dunham grant 1.8GB of storage has been added to the computer system bring it to 2.4GB total. Established a procedure where discordant observations are noted and the observer notified. We are now concentrating on developing programs to analyze the data. To make the AID more significant we need statistical tools to analyze the data. DB backed up weekly on cassette tapes and periodically stored in other locations. IT staff not changed. CfA regulars thanked. DB now at 5.4M observations. Treasuer puts Data Processing at $2664.10. ================================ JAAVSO Vol 23, #2 1995 Director's Report 1993-1994 Started processing the archival data. Being processed at a rate of 6 observations/min. Estimated time to complete: 5 years. Programs continue to be developed to provide: 1) Quick eval of data 2) info on discordant observations so they can be checked against original records. 3) identify staff person who evaluated the data and when. 4) perform sophisticated stat analysis on data to analyze long term 5) perform curve fitting on AAVSO light curves Hardware continues to be upgraded. NASA grant for the Hipparcos satellite got us a Pentium computer and CD-ROM reader. DB at 5.8M. IT Staff not changed. CfA regulars thanked for magnetic tape archiving and access to email. Treasuer puts Data Processing at $12484.80. ================================= JAAVSO Vol 24, #2 1996 Directors Report for 1994-1995 The AAVSO is put on the Web!! This thanks to the NASA Astrophysics Devison and NASA Science Internet. The initial setup and connection charges were funded by NASA. Bill Mackiewicz was the first Webmaster! From 1 Aug to 23 Oct, 1995 33.8K docs where served out with 1624 unique machines accessing the site. Also FTP site was created! The internet connection was put on a "powerful IBM-compatible computer on which we installed the Linux operating system. Added mail server to the network and upgraded all desktop computer to 486s w hard drives. IT Staff not changed. CfA regulars thanked. Treasuer puts Data Processing at $23098.43. ==================================== JAAVSO Vol 25, #2 1997 Directors Report for 1995-1996 Started to place charts on the FTP site. Currently 114 available. Web site visited an average of 228/day. 96% of Archival Data now processed. Should finish in six months. Beck and Saladyga using Lotus program Approach to redesign mailing list software for membership database, mailing labels and invoices. Added 2 new Pentium computers. Upgraded hard drives. Added Zip drive for archiving DB. Rest same as last year. ===================================== JAAVSO Vol 26, #2 1998 Directors Report for 1996-1997 AAVSO News Flash, Circular, and Alert Notice now being distributed via the web site. Started to place evaluated data by constellation on web and FTP site. Unevaluated LCs (currently all Mira variables) also on website. 483 pages/day visited on average. About 6k unique machines have visited web. 376 downloads of AAVSO-generated computer programs (ZAP, TS, WWZ). FTP site has 2179 files downloaded/month. About 2789 have visited FTP site. Database is currently archived on ZIP disks. Plans to archive on CDROM in future. 50% of monthly reports now come in electronically (email or disks), up from 32% last year. Archival project completed April 1997. Computer Software: Grant developed WWZ. Installed "more secure operating system on our web server." Vandal broke into UNIX system in January 1997. Installed Windows 95 on all office computers. All office computers either 486 or Pentium. Three have CDROMs. Purchased ZIP drive, CDROM writer, color printer. Web site named as one of best education-related sites on the web by Education Index. Staff unchanged. CfA thanked for email access. Treasuers report lists Data Processing at $13984.80. ==================================== 1967 confirmed as year AAVSO began computerized data processing and archiving "Archiving of Variable Star Data - The AAVSO Experience" from "The Study of Variable Stars Using Small Telescopes" by EOW edited by John Percy, Cambridge University Press, 1986. Data punched on cards, mechanically sorted by star and date at HQ and read into a disk file on the CDC computer at CfA. Printout was obtained and this was used to plot data. 1970 - Quarterly reports changed to include computer drawn LCs showing 10-day means of LPVs. 1976 - Aquired means to use magnetic tape as permenant storage for data archives. 1966-76 transcribed to tape. This continued on monthly basis. 1978 - Entire archive had to be converted when CfA switched from CDC to DEC VAX. All software had to be converted as well. 1981 - In house microcomputer purchaced (Ithaca Intersystem) with 8" disks which took the place of punch cards. 1983 - All processing done at HQ. Data were plotted one point/observation instead of 10-day means. ==================================== Computer Research File Box 7(1) Consultant's (Larry C. Wadle) report Feb 1988 - first mention of possible Macintosh purchase by AAVSO. Consultant recommended MicroVAX which AAVSO did not go with. ==================================== Mayall Era, Research Box 20 17 October 1970 paper by Barbara L. Welther details card punch and verifier equipment and history from 1967. Also details (with FORTRAN source code) AVPLOT.