9/99 Button Scheme for CONTROL The button array for the CONTROL program (LOAD, CANCEL, START, et al) has been changed. All the buttons are momentary now (i.e., none of them stick down). In this way, one can have any number of button arrays without having conflicts between them because some had a button stuck down and another didn't. In fact we've now implemented buttons on the Frankenheim terminal that can be pressed with the mouse. If this proves popular, we might relocate the real buttons to one of the receiver rooms. And since one is not limited to the above two arrays, we plan to set up another one in Tucson when we test out remote observing. (We'll also have to work out a scheme such that virtual buttons can't be used without the Mt Graham observer's permission.) The operation of the buttons is now slightly different. For the one's that used to stick down, one now presses them once to enable them (indicated by the lamp coming on) and again to disable them (the lamp goes off). This is fine except for START, WAIT, and AUTO. In the old scheme, their lights didn't come on until their function was active. Now, they must be turned on/off as soon as they are pressed. So three extra lamps were implemented (STARTING, WAITING, and IN AUTO) to indicate when these are not just enabled, but are in fact active. For example, when START is pressed, the START light immediately is turned on or off, as appropriate. When it is on and a subscan actually starts, the old START lamp would have been turned on. Now the STARTING lamp comes on too. Finally, the positions of the buttons have been rearranged. The two most frequently pressed, LOAD and CANCEL, are now on the end where they can be more easily found. Next to them are START & STARTING and WAIT & WAITING. The remaining buttons are seldom changed. Their positions were chosen in an attempt to group like functions together. Note that CONTROL only checks the real buttons 4 times a second. So they must be held down at least a quarter of a second in order to be sure that CONTROL will notice the press. This is NOT necessary for the virtual buttons.