HEASOFT 5.0 Released!

[James Peachey <peachey@bigband.gsfc.nasa.gov>]

***************************************************************
*     THE LABORATORY FOR HIGH ENERGY ASTROPHYSICS (LHEA)      *
*         AT THE GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER (GSFC)           *
*           IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF:            *
*                                                             *
*                   HEASOFT VERSION 5.0                       *
*                                                             *
*          AN INTEGRATED SOFTWARE SUITE CONSISTING            *
*               OF FTOOLS/FV, XANADU AND XSTAR                *
***************************************************************

Greetings,

The HEASOFT 5.0 Software suite, which contains FTOOLS 5.0/FV 2.6.1,
XANADU 5.0 (consists of XIMAGE 3.0, XRONOS 5.16, XSPEC 11.0)
and XSTAR 2.0 has been released.

For more information about this release, please see:
====================================================

  http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftools
  http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xanadu
  http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xstar

There are links from these web pages to the download web page
listed below.

To download the release from LHEA, please see:
====================================

  http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/lheasoft

The release gzipped tarfiles are also available via anonymous
FTP from:

  ftp://legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov/software/lheasoft/lheasoft5.0

Mirror Sites:
=============

***********************************************************************
PLEASE NOTE: The mirror sites listed below will be updated as soon
as possible, but may not have the release for several weeks, as
they are dependent upon the receipt of a tape by mail from the USA.
Your patience is appreciated!
***********************************************************************

The same release files *will be available soon* (in Europe) from
the LEDAS mirror site:

  http://ledas-www.star.le.ac.uk

and (in Asia) via anonymous FTP from:

  ftp://vega.bac.pku.edu.cn

NOTE FOR MACINTOSH AND MS WINDOWS 95/98/NT/2000 USERS: A full
version of HEASOFT 5.0 is *not* yet available for these platforms.
The FV 2.6.1 standalone release *is* supported both for the
Macintosh, and for the MS Windows family of operating systems.
See:

  http://olegacy.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/ftools/fv

for more information and to download FV 2.6.1 standalone.

As was true of FTOOLS 4.2, both source and binary distributions
are available for all supported Unix platforms. See the files
INSTALL.BINARY and INSTALL.SOURCE, for detailed installation
information.

Highlights of What's NEW in HEASOFT 5.0
========================================

1) XANADU and FTOOLS/FV are now available as an integrated whole!
The two packages now share a common library and header base, as
well as a common build/install paradigm.

2) In addition, all software released with HEASOFT 5.0 uses a
new common initialization procedure, which is described in the
document README.USERS, and is also included below for convenience.
IT IS IMPORTANT THAT ALL USERS DISCONTINUE USING THE OLD PROCEDURES
AND START USING THE NEW PROCEDURE. See README.USERS and/or below
for further information.

3) For the first time, the package XSTAR is distributed by the
LHEA software team. XSTAR is a command-driven program for
calculating the physical conditions and emission spectra of
photoionized gases. It has been previously distributed, but the
latest version (XSTAR 2.0) contains many new features and utilities,
and uses the same library infrastructure as FTOOLS and XANADU.

4) Support has been added for Macintosh LinuxPPC systems.
In addition, limited support is available for Linux/Alpha systems.

5) A large number of improvments have been made since the last
(separate) releases of all the HEASOFT 5.0 constituent packages,
particularly to the XIMAGE and XSPEC packages. For details, please
see the online release notes:

ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/software/lheasoft/lheasoft50/Release_Notes_5.0

Notices of future HEASOFT Releases
===================================

Notices of HEASOFT releases, patches, and other bits of
important information can also be obtained by an electronic mail
exploder. The list is called ftoolsnotes. Users can add their names
to this list by sending a message to:

                listserv@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov

requesting this action. This message should be sent from the
account and host on which the user would like to receive the
notices. Leave the subject blank and include in the body of the
request the following:

                 subscribe ftoolsnotes name

where "name" is replaced by the actual name.

Bug Reports
===========

Problems installing or using FTOOLS 5.0 or FV 2.6.1 should be
reported to:

                ftoolshelp@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov

Problems installing or using XANADU 5.0 (includes XIMAGE 3.0,
XRONOS 5.16 and XSPEC 11.0) should be reported to:

                xanprob@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov

Problems installing or using XSTAR 2.0 should be reported to:

                xstarhelp@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov
--