Richard Clark wrote:
On 27 Sep 2006 06:52:46 GMT, (John E. Davis)
wrote:

. . .

If EZNEC were available for linux, I would look into it. Also, can it
be driven in "batch" mode without a GUI?

There have been various reports of success and failure when Windows
emulators have been used. I cannot report any personal experience
because my Linux machine is largely confined to Server development
(XAMMP/Wiki/MySQL/RubyOnRails).

The last reports I've gotten are that Wine, the Linux Windows emulator,
isn't able to open the EZNEC manual, and has at least one other problem
with EZNEC. I've gotten several reports that the SoftWindows emulator
for the Mac runs even the professional versions of EZNEC flawlessly.
There isn't, and won't be in the foreseeable future, a native Linux or
Mac version of EZNEC; the market is simply too small.

EZNEC can be run in something resembling batch mode with MultiNec
(http://www.ac6la.com/).

The NEC-2 calculating engine in the demo and standard EZNEC program
types contains a mixture of single and double precision variables which
does considerably better than a fully single precision implementation
but with only a slightly greater memory requirement. EZNEC+ and the
professional programs also include a fully double-precision
implementation. None of these are identical to NEC-2 (of which there are
several slightly different versions in circulation); EZNEC has
consolidated scattered constant values, added protections against
numeric overflow, incorporates third-party math libraries for some
calculations, and has a few obscure bugs in the code fixed, among other
differences. Although EZNEC doesn't implement all the features of NEC-2
(patches, for example), it has features which NEC-2 doesn't, such as a
comprehensive geometry check and provision for wire insulation (and of
course the GUI). I've also found some optimizations done by various
compilers which cause errors or crashes in some cases, and of course
these are avoided when compiling EZNEC's calculating engines. In fact,
I'm just now working with a compiler manufacturer in tracking down what
looks like a bug I found in a new compiler I'm considering using for
future versions. NEC-2 is free, and people pay for EZNEC. They do get
something for it.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL