What is MIRIAD?

MIRIAD was originally developed in 1987 on Sun workstations (SUN OS 3.2), but has since then been ported to a large number of UNIX flavors (SUN OS 4.x, 5.x, SGI/IRIX, HP/UX, ConvexOS, DEC Alpha, LINUX, and VAX/VMS (not sure how much longer supported)). Most of the code is written in Fortran 77, with some lower level I/O routine in ANSI-C. The core (C) library of MIRIAD is also used in AIPS++.

Publications

• If you use MIRIAD and you want to refer to a publication, you can use the following:

  R.J. Sault, P.J.Teuben, and M.C.H.Wright. A Retrospective View of Miriad , in: Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems IV, ed. R.A. Shaw, H.E. Payne and J.J.E. Hayes. PASP Conf Series 77, 433 (1995).

• The reference for the online BIMA/Hat Creek software is:

  W. Hoffman, J. Hudson, R. K. Sharpe, A.W. Grossman, J.A. Morgan, and P.J. Teuben. Real-Time Observing at Hat Creek, in: Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems V, ed. G.H. Jacoby and J. Barnes. PASP Conf Series 101, 436 (1996).

Installation

• If you want to actively participate in MIRIAD software development, we suggest you get CVS access. For this you get a CVS 'pserver' account on our CVS server in Maryland. Reading our Introduction to CVS might be useful.
• The LINUX distribution is now available via the AstroMake project. These are binary distrutions, which are supposed to give you a very simple method of installing miriad and a number of other packages. Some of the Maryland patches are also folded into this release.

Local Deviations (old)

The following sites have supported versions of MIRIAD (several unofficial versions float around the globe) with the following (known) deviations from the standard export version (see the listed local MIRIAD manager for problems):

• Berkeley (/Bob Sault)
  • The SUN-UNIX version is maintained by ???
  • A VAX-VMS version on BKYAST is maintained by Bob Sault/Mel Wright. It may lag a little with the UNIX version, but not much.
• Illinois (Doug Roberts)
  • Various versions (Sun, Convex, SGI) maintained by Doug Roberts
• Maryland (Peter Teuben)
  • A linux version, for which you currently need a patch tar file with scripts for $MIR/bin/localsys (assumed not to share with other architectures).
  • mirinfo access to the texinfo hypertext system. This is slowly getting outdated now that most information is available through WWW servers ( Mosaic ). Popular interfaces are the -x (X-windows) and -tk (tcl/tk in X-windows).
  • mirman access to the manual pages. Standard Unix manual pages are automatically converted from Miriad doc files, and public domain tools proved to be a very powerful and efficient interface to the online miriad help system. It replaces the mirhelp command. Popular interfaces are the -x (X-windows) and -tk (tcl/tk in X-windows).
  • mirmake support for those who want to use makefiles for program development. Miriad doesn't supply scripts for this.
  • MIRIAD is part of the local BIMA WWW server.
  • Radiative transfer code (See for example lvg.1 , and micsph.1 ) Consult lgm@astro.umd.edu for installation- and usage-fees.
  • Enhanced version of the GNU readline command line editor for the miriad shell.
  • The submit utility is used to allow various programmers to copy and backup software directly into the MIRIAD tree for automated export.
  • The nemo alias loads the NEMO package. Probably most frequently used are some FITS (e.g. scanfits ) and TABLE (e.g. tabpp ) utilities.
• Hat Creek (???)
  • A older version of X windows is running, for which some patches were needed. Things may not look quite the same as you see in generic X11R5 versions.
• ATNF (Bob Sault/Neil Killeen)
  • Have their own User Guide and Programmers Guide .
  • Different directory structure
  • Scripts to compile and link programs in user directories.
  • AT specific programs, such as atlod, atxy, xyphase, atmos have been developed here. Use with care at non-AT sites, if available.

What is not MIRIAD?

• Module Integrator and Rule-based Intelligent Analytic Database