November 26, 2006

Dear Colleague:

A new release (5.1.0) of the MB-System software package is 
now available via anonymous ftp.  

MB-System is a software package for Unix computing
environments consisting of programs which manipulate, process,
list, or display swath bathymetry and sidescan data.
MB-System is being developed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute (MBARI) and the Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory (L-DEO) of Columbia University with support from the
National Science Foundation and the Packard Foundation.

The 5.1.0 release is now the current version of MB-system, and 
replaces all previous releases. We recommend that all MB-System users
upgrade to 5.1.0. In particular, we will no longer provide 
support for problems encountered while using MB-System releases
prior to 5.1.0.

Also, as many of you no doubt have noted, the GMT team has released
several incremental updates to their package since MB-System 5.0.9
was released last February. The current version of GMT is 4.1.4.
MB-System release 5.1.0 requires installation of GMT 4.1.4. We will 
not provide support for problems associated with the use of prior 
GMT releases.

If you identify a problem with this release, please provide us 
with a description of the problem, particulars of the installation 
(e.g. operating system and compile flags), and a data sample 
associated with the problem. We also ask that you post this 
information to the MB-System Discussion List rather than email 
us directly. The discussion list can be accessed at:
http://listserver.shore.mbari.org/read/?forum=mbsystem

We are continuing to actively develop MB-System, and so 
occasionally updates to the MB-System distribution will appear
in the MB-System ftp archive:
    ftp://ftp.ldeo.columbia.edu/pub/MB-System
and be announced on the MB-System web page:
    http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/MB-System
Only major releases will be announced by email.

To obtain the compressed tarfile of the directory structure containing
the source code, do the following:
        % ftp ftp.ldgo.columbia.edu
        Name:  anonymous
        Password:  your_email_address
        ftp>  cd pub/MB-System
        ftp>  binary
        ftp>  get MB-System.5.1.0.tar.gz
        ftp>  quit

Users may also obtain "point-and-click" access to the MB-System
source distribution by accessing the MB-System web page from
the Lamont-Doherty web page at:
        http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu

To uncompress:
        % gunzip MB-System.5.1.0.tar.gz

To extract the directory structure, move the MB-System tar file to
a disk with at least 50 MBytes of free space and do the following:
        % tar xvf MB-System.5.1.0.tar

Information and installation instructions are found in the file
mbsystem/README.

Note again that we prefer to be contacted through the MB-System discussion email list
(mbsystem@listserver.shore.mbari.org).

Cheers,

Dave Caress and Dale Chayes

David W. Caress (caress@mbari.org)
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
P.O. Box 628
Moss Landing, CA 95039-0628

Dale N. Chayes (dale@ldeo.columbia.edu)
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
Rte 9W
Palisades, NY 10964

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