[fitsbits] Happy Birthday, FITS!

[Don Wells]

Dear Friends-of-FITS,

I have always considered March 28th to be the birthday of FITS,
because the original Basic FITS Agreement was finalized on 1979-03-28
('28/03/79' old-style).  So today is the 25th birthday of the FITS
Agreement.  

Those of you who are not familiar with the history of how the
Agreement was reached, and how it came to be the standard for
astronomical data, can consult two different versions of that history:

1) Eric's FITS history

   Eric Greisen, the other negotiator for the Agreement, has produced
   an excellent review of the origin, role and nature of the FITS
   Agreements during the past 25 years.  It was published two years
   ago as a chapter in an astronomical history book edited by Andre
   Heck. A link to the document is available on Eric's web page, at

       http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~egreisen

2) Don's FITS history

   In 1992 I posted a description of early FITS documents which were,
   and still are, in my files. This document will tell you about the
   'pre-history' of FITS, including such details as the reasoning
   behind the 2880-byte record size, the original proposal for keyword
   length, and an interesting coincidence of notable historical events
   that happened 25 years ago today. See

       http://www.cv.nrao.edu/fits/documents/overviews/history.news
           or
       http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/birthday.news

Best regards,
Don Wells
-- 
  Donald C. Wells             Scientist               dwells at nrao.edu
                    http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells
  National Radio Astronomy Observatory                +1-434-296-0277
  520 Edgemont Road,   Charlottesville, Virginia       22903-2475 USA