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Free Roundball Ballistics Program

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Zonie

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I'll try this again.
Several weeks (months?) ago I posted a link to a site which has a downloadable program which is designed to calculate roundball trajectories.
Somehow the link got messed up so here's another attempt.

Ballistics Calculator
 
The link seems to be working, so I don't want to frinkle with that post.

The only problem I had with the program was figuring out how to print it.
The method I came up with was to do a "screen grab".
Then open a paint window and paste the grab into it.
Then using the paint tool, reversing the black/white so the text was black and the background white.
Then just printing the results out.

This program was created and Posted by one of our members.

It isn't very fancy, but it is a lot of fun to use.
:)
 
Very cool little program!

I sent him an e-mail... it would be nice to have a command to quit the program.

It would also be great to have it in a graphical environment, where it would not only print the data, but also plot it on a graph so you could see the flight of the projectile. I'm sure he'll get to that point eventually.

Nifty!
 
HUH?

Hank

Here's a tutorial for you:

1 - Download the program by clicking on the link. Save it to a folder so you know where it is. (I saved mine to c:\download.)

2 - Run the roundball.exe by clicking Start, then click Run. When the window pops up, type in "cmd", then click OK.

3 - This will bring up a "Command Window". Type in "cd \download" (substitute download with the folder you saved the program to), then hit Enter.

4 - Type in "roundball" and hit enter. This will run the program you downloaded.

5 - Follow the instructions on the website and run the program to get your ballistic information.

6 - Put your mouse pointer on the very bottom edge of the command window, and the cursor will change to a small black arrow that points up and down simultaneously. Hold down the left mouse button, and pull the mouse towards you to make the window large enough to show all of the ballistic data at the same time. Your window should look something like this:

rb1.jpg


7 - Now that your data is on the screen, hold down the Alt key, and press the key that says "Print Scrn SysRq".

8 - Click on Start, then click on Programs, then click on Accessories, then click on Paint. Once paint comes up, hold down the Ctrl key and hit V. This will paste the screen print into paint. You should now see something like this:

rb2.jpg


9 - On the menu at the top of the Paint window, is a menu titled "Image". Click on the word Image, then click on "Invert Colors" on the menu that pops up. This will change the black to white, and the white to black. You should now see something like this:

rb3.jpg


10 - Now, you can click on "File", then click on "Print", and print out your data from the program and it won't use up all the ink in your printer and look like something out of a bad horror movie. :redthumb:

HTH, if you have questions or problems, please let me know and I'll help you through them.
 
HUH?

Thanks john, I'm sure that will help someone. Just not me. I don't have a clue what you're talking about but I appreciate the effort. I think I'm still stuck in the sixties.

Hank
 
HUH?

Thanks john, I'm sure that will help someone. Just not me. I don't have a clue what you're talking about but I appreciate the effort. I think I'm still stuck in the sixties.

Hank

*sigh*

Well, I tried. I guess my next question would be what exactly do you not have a clue about? Do you not know what the program does, or what I described, or what?
 
Here's a tutorial for you:

<<snipped>>
HTH, if you have questions or problems, please let me know and I'll help you through them.

Excellent tutorial, I haven't dl'd this one as I don't have a need for it, but as long as it's running in a cmd window, wasn't there a way to pipe output from screen direct to file using the pipe key? -> | <- (uppercase \). It's been a long time since I played in any "real" computer work :D

:hmm: Seems that it would be easy enough to run, pipe to file, import into excel and then graph the output.

vic
 
Well, you could redirect output to a file using the '>', but the problem is if you can't use command-line parameters to set the program up and get the information you want, all you'll get in your file is the first few instruction lines that come up when you first run the program. Piping is more for sending the output of one program to be the input of another program. I haven't tried, but if you could do something like "roundball /A75 /C.53 /V1600 /F" then this would work.
 
Maybe I am dense but it would be great to be able to enter the powder type and weight also.
 
Powder type and weight are irrelevant to the ballistic equation. All that matters is muzzle velocity (as far as the powder charge is concerned). It would be very difficult and inaccurate to add powder type and charge weight. The author would have to do a lot of "guesstimating" as far as the resulting velocity. Different powders, different lots of the same powder, different barrels, different barrel lengths, all change the muzzle velocity. It's easier (and more accurate) to just ask for the muzzle velocity and go from there. It's up to the user to have an idea of the muzzle velocity of a given charge, using a chronograph or his own guesstimating, etc. That relieves a lot of burden from the programmer. :redthumb:
 
Damed StaticXDOOd: It's good to have someone around here that knows this computer stuff.
Your show and tell is exactly what I had to do to print out the data.

Your exactly right about the powder load not being a part of the information that's needed.

As for a storage place for this program, I set up a quick link? for my desktop screen. It made a little icon that's always there on my screen when I need it. :) :)
 
I received a reply from the author of the program.

> Other than putting it into a nice GUI and perhaps plotting the data on a
> graph, the one thing with the current DOS program that would be nice to
> have is a "Q" to quit. I ended up hitting Ctrl-C to get out of the program.
>
> Thanks! Very interesting stuff!
.
Thanks,
.
Prettying it up in a GUI or putting it out as a web-based application is on my list of things to do, but that is a long and growing list.

Looks like he's working on it, and eventually will probably have a really nice web program to do it, but if the list is that long and growing, and he's a busy man (e-mail said he's an MD), it could be a while until that happens!
 
Ok, I guess I'm not too bright. I've tried typing in the command line every way I can think of. :curse: What is the exact syntax? Can someone type in a sample command line, Please? ::

Nevermind, I went back and reread the instructions and figured it out.
 
You folks who are trying this program may not have noticed, but below the printout data box it not only tells you what values you put in, but it gives you the weight of the ball automatically.
If you want to use it for a ball'ett type of projectile you can type in the caliber ( c.495) and the weight ( w400) (for a 400 grain slug).

It's really neat when you figure how much it cost!! :) :)
 

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