As expected, one of my contacts expressed an interest in this and would like more information. And I am now sending some along and am asking what people know about such programs. Initially it sounds like no one has ever heard of this type of program.

You mentioned that it might be circulated on a CD. Can you estimate its probable size including the necessary data files?

Suggestions: The following options would be easy to add though they would require some time.

The program could be directed to automatically read and process a file containing multiple predictions. To do that the user could start it running as a batch file by adding a “/b” at the end of the start command line. Or the program could be started using different names.

The output would be sent to both the display and to an output file.

There would be a default format or a modifiable format file which it would also read. Those files would contain information such as the format of the input data, how the calculations would be done, what the output would look like, and what the names of the prediction data input and probability table output files would be. This would let people tell the program how they wanted to enter the time and location information etc., local, UTC etc. Once such an option is available in a program it is easy to modify in order to make it more versatile. Again, options such as “/m” or different startup names could be used.

Before doing anything you might want to wait until I hear from my contacts. There is no sense in reinventing the wheel if that is not necessary.

Comment: It might be difficult to believe, but this is quite serious. If my contacts feel that something like that proposed program or information regarding geomagnetic storm – earthquake triggering effects have some value then they could probably get whatever is being considered quickly merged into a number of important earthquake forecasting efforts.