DOS based SSTV software

A few years ago, the only SSTV software available ran under DOS. It was not as polished looking as the current Windows based SSTV programs, but it loaded and ran very fast, and almost never crashed. Some of this software is still available, but although it still works quite well, it is not used very much anymore. The two most commonly used systems are mentioned below. The programs are very small and can be held on a single 3 1/2" floppy disk.

DOS based programs are sometimes run under Windows with disappointing results. The problem is that Windows constantly takes interrupts and the transmit and receive timing of the DOS frame rate is disturbed and delayed by these interrupts. The solution is to run DOS based programs under DOS, not Windows. This is achieved by enabling DOS only and disabling Windows while this program is running.

SAWSCAN

A program popularly called SAWSCAN was written in Germany by DL4SAW, hence the popular name. It has gone through several versions, but has been static in development for the past few years. It used to be marketed by a USA amateur, but things somehow fell through and it is directly supported from Germany. The current version of SAWSCAN still has a number of annoying bugs like making Robot 36 pictures turn green. It is available in 2 versions. A free version is available at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepage/dl4saw/shw-12.htm. It is highly crippled and obsolete, so you are going to get what you pay for on this program.

The latest version of SAWSCAN is available at   http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepage/dl4saw/fullvers.htm     By sending about $55 to Europe, you will be given a software key to completely unlock the SAWSCAN features.

PROSKAN

Another popular DOS program was PROSKAN, still mispelled by KA1LPA. The latest version of this SSTV program can be downloaded from   http://users.cyberzone.net/jamie/proskans.zip