AR8200 Toolkit: New Software for Mac OS X

[Sparkletron]

AR8200 software for the Mac (and ham radio software in general) has always been a rarity. I used to use Don Agro's MacMemoriesManager (MMM), but to be honest it was ridiculously slow (e.g., taking well over a minute to save a mere 48k). I recently revisited MMM and found that it's no longer actively sold or developed and doesn't appear to work with Snow Leopard. So that forced me to either program the radio by hand, use PC software on my Mac, or develop new software for an old radio. I've recently been working on other serial projects so that last option didn't seem as daunting as it sounds. The result is the AR8200 Toolkit.

Toolkit has a very limited scope: to manage the scan banks (the most tedious aspect of the AR8200). Those familiar with AOR's own offerings will find many features conspicuously lacking. On the other hand, AOR's software doesn't run on Mac, Linux, etc.

Toolkit is written in Java and uses RXTX serial drivers. It's a double-clickable JAR that will run on Mac OS X (including Snow Leopard), most flavors of Windows, and most flavors of Linux. Basically, it should work fine on any platform that supports JRE1.6.x and for which RXTX serial drivers exist.

The software is at the stage where it's working and stable, but I need volunteers to test it. So if anyone is interested in trying out untested and possibly buggy software, please contact me at ar8200toolkit@efferential.com. Here are some screen shots...

 

[johnr5329]

You have done a good job putting this together and the potential for it being multi-platform is a nice touch! Thanks for creating this software and sharing it with us.

 

[Sparkletron]

Thank you. Here are some screen shots of Toolkit running on Windows XP...

 

[Sparkletron]

Here are some screenshots of Toolkit running on Linux (Ubuntu)...

 

[minerdad]

great work!

 

[ka3jjz]

Indeed; if you would write something up in Word, it can be translated into the wiki, along with the sample screenshots very easily. A user guide that describes installation, each screen and so on are all possibilities here.

I suspect other 8200 owners will find it useful. You can contact me at ka3jjz (at) verizon (dot) net if you want to proceed with this.

Best Regards...Mike

 

[Sparkletron]

Thank you!

A PDF user guide as well as a permanent home web page is being developed in preparation for a formal release. I will contact you with the details as soon as I have this information available.

Toolkit will be distributed free of charge, uncrippled, and without adware, so that should make some AR8200 owners happy.

 

[pilot_ngb]

Hello Sparkletron

Please check your PM.

 

[Sparkletron]

The official home page for Toolkit is: AR8200 Toolkit

 

[Giulio]

Why not update the post's Object in "AR8200 Toolkit: New Multiplatform Software" ?