Why am I in this class?
Well, I don't have an answer to this question.
I am logged into a Unix system remotely and I cannot get any graphics to display on my screen?
This is a very common problem and the answer depends on what computer your are using toremotely login with:
(i) If you are logging into a computer from another unix system (using telnet), then
make sure the computer allows x-windows to display from remote systems (xhost +) and
make sure the remote system is sending the graphics display to the computer that you are
using (setenv |grep DISPLAY [in csh], if you need to set the display type "setenv DISPLAY address:0.0".
(ii) If you are using a PC, you will need to be in an X-windows emulation program such
as xwin or exceed. Then follow the instuctions above.
How do I plot in Octave and then save the plot to a file which I can incorporate into MS-Word (or some other word processor)?
(i) type "octave" to start Octave, (ii) enter your plot values (we will say that the variable x is one array of data and y is another array of data), (iii) type "plot(x,y,'bo')" to make an y -versus- x plot where the values are denoted by blue circles. Also, you will note that the output of plot came up as a seperate x-window on your screen. (iii) To send the output to a file instead of the screen type:
set term gif
set output filename.gif
replot
This creates a file named "filename.gif" that contains your plot in gif graphics format. There are lots of formats that the plot could be saved in (e.g. postscript, hpgl, mf, etc...). So you can substitute "gif" for your favorite graphics format. Now type "set term x11" to get the display back to your screen.