Conventions

Figures showing screen displays of some programs will be shown in reverse-video in this document for ease of printing and reading, eg this figure

Commands that you enter into ATCA computers usually start with the operating system prompt or online program's prompt: COMPUTER or PROGRAM NAME

Do not type this prompt when entering commands.

The operating system prompt that appears when using atcaobs on XBONES is the $ prompt. The convention adopted here is simply to indicate where a particular command is appropriate. For example, XBONES is the name of one of the ATCA computers, whose operating system prompt is `$' and ATCASCHED is the name of the program used to produce observing files (`schedule files'). ATCASCHED's prompt is `$>$'.

Commands and filenames appear in a courier typeface: command. Optional command parameters (do not type the brackets when entering commands) appear [in square brackets]. When there are several parameter options, the options are separated by the $\vert$ character. For example: bell [on$\vert$off] is a command used to change the state of the terminal alarm. Type only the option you choose and omit the $\vert$ character when entering the command.

Linux/UNIX is case-sensitive, and so commands must be typed in the correct (usually lower) case. The following example is the command used to initiate an ATCA observation: CAOBS$>$start [n[/m]]. The string `CAOBS$>$' indicates that this command can be used only in the window that is running the online program CAOBS. The word start is the command, n and m are optional parameters that must be separated by the slash ( / ) character to indicate that n is the number of the first object to be observed, and m is the number of times the cycle is to be observed. This command is described in full in the section on CAOBS commands.

A number of important directories in the CAOBS area on XBONES have an environment variables set for them: these are prefixed with a $ sign: for example, the $ATCA_SCHED environment variable is (automatically on login) set to the directory name /atomsexport/caobsonline/caobs_sched . Throughout the manual the environment variable will be used to denote the relevant directory. Recall that linux is case-sensitive!

Terms that are introduced for the first time are italicized.