Note : At the time of the initial offering of DESL - circa 2/1/99 - only
the Intel PC is supported.
On about 6/1/00 support for three Unix platforms was begun. DESL is
now available in a demonstration mode for the following systems :
* This collection
* of web pages that constitute the DESL documentation makes references
* to terms which are only pertinent to the Windows 9X/NT platforms, although
* the intent is to, in the future, support various Unix platforms as well.
*
* When Unix systems are supported the documentation will be modified
* accordingly.
(System names were as a result of the issuance of
the uname -a command.)
DESL is an integrated system providing the user with a functionally-rich set of production software to facilitate interactive and/or batch manipulation, analysis and display of small or large volumes of data.
DESL has grown out of the desire to address several performance issues which were inherent within a previous system known as DAS but retain commonality in command names and their arguments.
| Please take a look at the collection of frequently asked questions. Hopefully most of your questions regarding how to obtain, configure, and use DESL are addressed. |
Within DESL, as indicated in the sketch below, data flows from original files to derived files through a user-directed sequence of manipulation, analysis and/or display functions.
Each DESL function is able to perform some specific task.
When used in succession the DESL functions represent a
very powerful system of user-directed functionality able to
deal with data in ways meaningful to the discovery of trends,
the determination and reporting of characteristics and/of the
preparation of data for subsequent analysis.
DESL can be downloaded via the Word Wide Web from
the Vigyan server
as either the Demonstration or the
Unrestricted mode.
Both of these modes of operation have access to the
same set of
functionality. However, each has a different operational password
which must be set via the DESLPW environment
variable or entered after "password" as the very first command.
This password command
specification can be made from a DESL
initialization file so the burden imposed on the user is minimal.
The demonstration version of DESL is free and will live for approximately 30 days from the time of the download and is intended to give a prospective DESL user a feel for it capabilities and nuances.
The unrestricted version of DESL is distributed presumably to those who have already gotten the flavor of DESL from the use of it as the demonstration version, but this is not required. The unrestricted version of DESL is available as part of an annual paid subscription. This subscription allows a user to download the DESL self-extracting archive as often during the year's duration as desired.
The downloaded DESL executable will not expire after the 1-year period. Most likely, however, a downloaded version will become more and more outdated as new development is done and more capabilities are added.
If it is so indicated on the
form to initiate the subscription, email delivery of pertinent changes
and/or upgrades to DESL will be made.
Both the demonstration and unrestricted versions of DESL are delivered as self-extracting archives. The full set of currently-available documentation is included in this archive. Once unpacked locally, the DESL web pages can be created on your DESL host. This may be desired to have faster access to the documentation independent of a remote server or in a case where DESL is being used in a secure environment or for both of these reasons.
Perhaps the best reason to install the documentation locally is that, for the DESL subscription case, up to 10 notebooks can be specified at the time of (re)generation of the local web pages such that up to a total of 10,000 user notes can be incorporated in the web pages, tied to unchanging locations in the documentation by named note identifiers.
Presently, DESL is run via a command line interface. There, specific DESL commands are issued, followed by options those commands require.
A sample DESL command-line session might look like the following to
fit
files run1 run2 run3
names alpha cl
values -5 to 20 by .5
order 3
curve poly
newfiles newrun1 newrun2 newrun3
go
pp
files newrun1 thru newrun3
x alpha
y cl
quick
plot
go
The code is written in Fortran.
On the PC Compaq Visual Fortran is used. *
* On the Sun (4.x) native Fortran77 compiler is used.
On the Sun (5.x) native Fortran77 compiler is used.
On the SGI (6.x) native Fortran77 compiler is used.
On the Linux (6.x) g77 compiler is used.
The current state and future development of DESL is and will continue to be to provide the user with a set of practical software tools which can be used to deal with data typically associated with experimental and routine engineering situations.
Check out the entire list of DESL commands.
You can see some of the improvements and/or changes which have occurred in moving from DAS to DESL as well the current list of planned improvements.
The hardware/software requirements for the use of DESL can be seen here.
| We suggest that you now go to the page which can begin the download and install process. |
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