K3 Cool version 6 - posted.

[Don Rasmussen]

I've posted the test version of the high resolution K3 Cool Version 6, for those adventurous types. This is test software, if nothing goes wrong that means I am perfect. ;-)

 

I can promise that won't happen. But versions of the core program have been operational for some time.

 

So please read all the disclaimers and give it a try if you are comfortable with version 1.0 software. ;-)

 

http://www.zerobeat.net/mediawiki/index.php/Procat_Cool_for_Windows

 

Then page down, down, down...

 

73,

Don

 

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[AB3EN]

Don,

Nice program. I installed it shortly after you posted it and it works well. I really like the meter, AGC and filter button operations. Let me know when you want a registration. A different approach to to a computer front end. For rag chewing I like the ease of operation vs say HRD. Both are good approaches just different twists. Well done!

Dan
 

Don Rasmussen wrote

I've posted the test version of the high resolution K3 Cool Version 6, for those adventurous types. This is test software, if nothing goes wrong that means I am perfect. ;-)
 
I can promise that won't happen. But versions of the core program have been operational for some time.
 
So please read all the disclaimers and give it a try if you are comfortable with version 1.0 software. ;-)
 
http://www.zerobeat.net/mediawiki/index.php/Procat_Cool_for_Windows
 
Then page down, down, down...
 
73,
Don
 
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[ab2tc]

I have tried to install this program, but it appears that unless one has VB installed, one is out of luck. The first complaint was the missing vbrun300.dll. I located this on the web and installed it the folder I tried to install Cool from. Rerunning the setup, it's missing another dll file; I forget the name. I suspect I could go on like this until I had found and installed all files needed by the VB runtime system. Is there perhaps a compiler switch or something that could be changed so that it would produce an executable that is not dependent on other files? It does look a very nice program to try out.

Knut - AB2TC

AB3EN wrote

Don,

Nice program. I installed it shortly after you posted it and it works well. I really like the meter, AGC and filter button operations. Let me know when you want a registration. A different approach to to a computer front end. For rag chewing I like the ease of operation vs say HRD. Both are good approaches just different twists. Well done!
<snip>

[David Woolley (E.L)]

ab2tc wrote:
> I have tried to install this program, but it appears that unless one has VB
> installed, one is out of luck. The first complaint was the missing
> vbrun300.dll. I located this on the web and installed it the folder I tried

Note, if it is legal to download this from the web, in isolation, at
all, the only place to download it from will be Microsoft themselves.
Conversely, if you can't download it from Microsoft, it is almost
certainly an illegal copy.

> to install Cool from. Rerunning the setup, it's missing another dll file; I
> forget the name. I suspect I could go on like this until I had found and
> installed all files needed by the VB runtime system. Is there perhaps a
> compiler switch or something that could be changed so that it would produce
> an executable that is not dependent on other files? It does look a very nice
> program to try out.

Basically, no. Unless he rewrote it in C, using only basic Windows API
capabilities, which would be a major job (many times the job of writing
it originally) it is always going to require additional DLLs if it is to
run on a wide range of versions of Windows. (He is actually writing
using tools that haven't been supported by Microsoft for some years, but
that does make it more likely to work on versions of Windows that are
likely to still be in use but themselves haven't been supported for years.)

Normally the development tools contain some files which are termed
redistributables. These can be redistributed, free of charge, as long as
they are included as part of a program that needs them, and the licence
for that program gives adequate protection (e.g. not allowing them to be
further redistributed, without the program, or to be reverse engineered).

Assuming that he only used redistributable DLLs, he should have included
those used in the setup package. A caveat, though, this age of tooling
was particularly prone to a problem known as "DLL Hell" (Google it),
which relates to having conflicting version requirements for DLLs, or
different versions installed in different places.

A commercial developer, writing a Windows only GUI program, these days,
would probably use .NET.  The DLLs needed for that should already be
installed on Vista, and are, I think, installed on XP.  A commercial
developer simply wouldn't support 98 or ME, but to run the program on
those, you would need to either include .NET framework redistributables,
or the end user would need to install the full framework.

(.NET programs tend to perform poorly on older machines and access to
lower level functions, and other more technical features, often involves
third party code (which would need its own redistributables to be
supplied) or coding some parts against low level Windows interfaces,
which requires a technically skilled programmer.

Where I work, we have to use third party code just to access serial
ports, although I think that might be because we need more than two
ports - although serial ports seem to be considered obsolete by
Microsoft, and the lowest levels of abstraction they really want to
support, for normal programmers, is a TCP connection, although they
might prefer it to be the .NET remote procedure call level)


--
David Woolley
"The Elecraft list is a forum for the discussion of topics related to
Elecraft products and more general topics related ham radio"
List Guidelines <http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_list_guidelines.htm>
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[Rick Commo]

Well, usually stuff like vbrun300.dll is in something that Microsoft calls a "redistributable"
package that developers can hand out with their programs.

Also, there are a number of sites that have various DLLs for download.  For example,
http://www.dll-files.com was one of the first that hits with a Google search for vbrun300.dll.

But if you'll sleep better by getting it directly from Microsoft try:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196285/

As a side comment I would note that bvrun300.dll harkens back to Visual Basic 3.0; which is no more
than just a few generations old! ;-) [See David Woolley's comments under the original subject line.]

Cheers,
-rick, K7LOG


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[ab2tc]

I did eventually get it to work by downloading an older version and then
upgrade. But I found that it does not do anything useful for me so I got
rid of it again.

BTW you do not need any 3rd party software to do serial I/O under
Windows. Standard Windows APIs like CreateFile(), ReadFile() and
WriteFile() are quite easy to use for serial I/O and are well documented
by Microsoft.

Knut - AB2TC

David Woolley (E.L) (via Nabble) wrote:

> ab2tc wrote:
> > I have tried to install this program, but it appears that unless one
> has VB
> > installed, one is out of luck. The first complaint was the missing
> > vbrun300.dll. I located this on the web and installed it the folder
> I tried
>
> Note, if it is legal to download this from the web, in isolation, at
> all, the only place to download it from will be Microsoft themselves.
> Conversely, if you can't download it from Microsoft, it is almost
> certainly an illegal copy.
>
> > to install Cool from. Rerunning the setup, it's missing another dll
> file; I
> > forget the name. I suspect I could go on like this until I had found
> and
> > installed all files needed by the VB runtime system. Is there perhaps a
> > compiler switch or something that could be changed so that it would
> produce
> > an executable that is not dependent on other files? It does look a
> very nice
> > program to try out.
>
> Basically, no. Unless he rewrote it in C, using only basic Windows API
> capabilities, which would be a major job (many times the job of writing
> it originally) it is always going to require additional DLLs if it is to
> run on a wide range of versions of Windows. (He is actually writing
> using tools that haven't been supported by Microsoft for some years, but
> that does make it more likely to work on versions of Windows that are
> likely to still be in use but themselves haven't been supported for
> years.)
>
> Normally the development tools contain some files which are termed
> redistributables. These can be redistributed, free of charge, as long as
> they are included as part of a program that needs them, and the licence
> for that program gives adequate protection (e.g. not allowing them to be
> further redistributed, without the program, or to be reverse engineered).
>
> Assuming that he only used redistributable DLLs, he should have included
> those used in the setup package. A caveat, though, this age of tooling
> was particularly prone to a problem known as "DLL Hell" (Google it),
> which relates to having conflicting version requirements for DLLs, or
> different versions installed in different places.
>
> A commercial developer, writing a Windows only GUI program, these days,
> would probably use .NET.  The DLLs needed for that should already be
> installed on Vista, and are, I think, installed on XP.  A commercial
> developer simply wouldn't support 98 or ME, but to run the program on
> those, you would need to either include .NET framework redistributables,
> or the end user would need to install the full framework.
>
> (.NET programs tend to perform poorly on older machines and access to
> lower level functions, and other more technical features, often involves
> third party code (which would need its own redistributables to be
> supplied) or coding some parts against low level Windows interfaces,
> which requires a technically skilled programmer.
>
> Where I work, we have to use third party code just to access serial
> ports, although I think that might be because we need more than two
> ports - although serial ports seem to be considered obsolete by
> Microsoft, and the lowest levels of abstraction they really want to
> support, for normal programmers, is a TCP connection, although they
> might prefer it to be the .NET remote procedure call level)
>
>
> --
> David Woolley
> "The Elecraft list is a forum for the discussion of topics related to
> Elecraft products and more general topics related ham radio"
> List Guidelines <http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_list_guidelines.htm>
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[David Woolley (E.L)]

ab2tc wrote:
>
> BTW you do not need any 3rd party software to do serial I/O under
> Windows. Standard Windows APIs like CreateFile(), ReadFile() and
> WriteFile() are quite easy to use for serial I/O and are well documented
> by Microsoft.

And not used by most programmers.  Programming at the Windows API level
is considered too techie by most software development managers.  .NET
does, I believe have limited serial support, but I think it is
restricted to the two onboard serial ports (I wasn't involved in the
decision process that led to having to buy a third party component, but
certainly for .NET, and possibly for VB, but certainly they concluded
that there was no way of supporting multiple serial ports without
extensive use of "platform invoke" - the fact that the component exists
suggests there is a big hole in the market where Microsoft don't
adequately support serial comms in .NET).


--
David Woolley
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Elecraft products and more general topics related ham radio"
List Guidelines <http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_list_guidelines.htm>
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[ab2tc]

I repeat, there is no need for 3rd party software, nor is .NET required. If you'll give me your E-mail address I can send you a small library that provides you with simple open/close/putchar/getchar functionality to any port that can be used with Windows and uses just standard Windows API.

David Woolley (E.L) wrote

ab2tc wrote:
>
> BTW you do not need any 3rd party software to do serial I/O under
> Windows. Standard Windows APIs like CreateFile(), ReadFile() and
> WriteFile() are quite easy to use for serial I/O and are well documented
> by Microsoft.

And not used by most programmers.  Programming at the Windows API level
is considered too techie by most software development managers.

<snip>

[Julian, G4ILO]

ab2tc wrote

I repeat, there is no need for 3rd party software, nor is .NET required. If you'll give me your E-mail address I can send you a small library that provides you with simple open/close/putchar/getchar functionality to any port that can be used with Windows and uses just standard Windows API.

I think this thread is straying rather far off topic. Don's program is written using Visual Basic. Therefore he probably uses the MSCOMM control to access the serial port. Whether or not he could have used another method if he had written it in another language is irrelevant, because he didn't. Most of us amateurs writing free software for other hams are not professionals and do what we can with the skills and tools that we have.

Incidentally, using the API it is certainly possible to write serial port access code that works with a real serial port and not with a USB adapter. So using a third party library that has been well and truly tried and tested is probably a wise decision.

[David Woolley (E.L)]

Julian, G4ILO wrote:
>
>
> ab2tc wrote:
>> I repeat, there is no need for 3rd party software, nor is .NET required.

.NET *causes* the problem.  .NET is required because programming
managers believe they need to use it to get the right balance between
minimising cost and using something supported by Microsoft and saleable
to customers.

>> port that can be used with Windows and uses just standard Windows API.

You should be able to do anything that Windows can do using standard
APIs, as, in the end, VB, .NET, and third party controls eventually use
standard APIs.

>>
> I think this thread is straying rather far off topic. Don's program is

Requests to declare a thread off topic should be directed to Eric, off list.

> written using Visual Basic. Therefore he probably uses the MSCOMM control to

I believe we started using third party controls (possibly written by the
same people) because MSCOMM was limited to the two standard ports.

> of us amateurs writing free software for other hams are not professionals
> and do what we can with the skills and tools that we have.

Software development managers want to minimise training costs and
maximise the available labour pool, so professional developers actually
choose languages for similar reasons to amateurs; the main difference is
that having the latest buzzword language is more important to them.
Some of the biggest users of more technical programming tools are
actually freeware writers.


--
David Woolley
"The Elecraft list is a forum for the discussion of topics related to
Elecraft products and more general topics related ham radio"
List Guidelines <http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_list_guidelines.htm>
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[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ]

This is getting a little off topic. Lets end the thread now and take the
discussion off list to direct email.

73, Eric  WA6HHQ
Elecraft List Moderator
======

David Woolley (E.L) wrote:
> Julian, G4ILO wrote:
>  
>> I think this thread is straying rather far off topic. Don's program is
>>    

> Requests to declare a thread off topic should be directed to Eric, off list
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[Thom LaCosta-2]

At 06:20 PM 01/15/09, Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft wrote:
>This is getting a little off topic. Lets end the thread now and take the
>discussion off list to direct email.


An alternative for Off Topic posts and continuation of threads that
may not be appropriate here is located
at http://www.zerobeat.net/smf/  You'll need to create and account
using your callsign so I know you're
not a spammer.

73,
Thom k3hrn

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