Pico-Satellite coming along

Nothing to do with me mind - project is one of my trusted advisors projects.

Check out @FossaSys on Twitter for full info.

However, its a great learning ground for my Fortran revival - learning by osmosis about Arduino's and LORA with a bit of programming thrown in (but not too much mind).

Box of tricks just arrived for the schools workshops that are planned to take place over coming months - code to be flown on the satellite.

How cool is that.....beep, beep, beep....

The revival is revived!

The next challenge......

OK - I have the next revival project sorted!

I'ts a bit of back to the future related to the ROBFIT code myself and Bob Coldwell of the University of Florida physics department developed towards the back end of the 1980's.

So that's the 'back' bit!

After 20 years I have managed to resurrect the Fortran files - from 3 1/2" floppies - just finding a drive to read these was an exercise in itself. Thanks to mumbam for digging out an old work computer - though she did then go on about how the version of Excel loaded on the machine was far better than the modern one which was slightly worrying.

Anyway I have now extracted the files - cold sweat as I remember the work put into writing these. All seem fine - I now have a list of files that makefiles,

BKGFIT
FSPDIS
FSPFIT
RAWDD
STDIS
STGEN
VRMAIN
XCALIBER

now need to figure out what they do, maybe I should read the book :O. However, I have contacted Bob and have decided to load this version of the code onto a proper 'open' repository.

That's the 'future' bit.

I have been reliably informed by Bambofy (many thanks again) that 'github' is the place for this so my very next task is to figure out how to do that.

The journey goes back in time.....

2 down 1 to go........

Second code review completed and documented.

On to the third code which is well structured much better documented!

A sample of the data input sheets for this code;

1. Button Title Datasheet Title
2. Parts Count Data Parts Count
3. Process Release Freq. Data 
4. Riser Release Frequencies 
5. Blowout Frequencies 
6. Special Frequencies 
7. Events Events
8. (Ignition Probabilities) 
9. (Escalation) n/a
10. Fire and Explosion Frequencies 
11. (Immediate Fatality Fractions) 
12. Population Population
13. Immediate Hydrocarbon Risk 
14. Travel Risk
15. Non-Hydrocarbon Risk 
16. Button Title Datasheet Title
17. Hydrocarbon QRA Results 
18. Summary QRA Results 

Just got to figure out how it all links together now!

First contact

So I have started to look into the FORTRAN a little.

At this point I must say that I have been sent a batch of .for and .f90 files to try and figure out how the code operates. The software team that built the code have all left the organisation along with a batch of files and instructions on how to compile the lot into an executable that represents a marine navigation simulator - a bit like a flight simulator but for navigating and mooring ships. The code has a Visual Basic (VB) user interface which has levers and switches to represent the various ship controls. This VB interface sits on top of the FORTRAN core that calculates the physics of the various forces the moving ship experiences. That's everything from propeller thrust forces to wind, waves, drag and any tug related forces. This, along with a representation of the surrounding geography and any water flow details allows simulation of a port environment within which the user can manoeuvre the ship in to the dock.

So - the first issue relates to the use of a FORTRAN differential equation solver in a real time simulation environment. Certainly not seen anything like this set up before personally! Now need to have bit more of a delve into the code to see exactly how this is set up.