Though AIPS programs lend themselves to the dataflow based model, they may not like their existing files to be overwritten. It is up to the user to define a fixed name. This turned out to be very laborious and annoying for the user. The user can also decide to use shared memory or sockets, in which case this difference disappears. Programs that are sending output to stdout or stderr , or for that matter, reading from stdin will get stuck.
Output is another story.
If the name, referenced on the -H help line, is a directory, within that directory there can be several files which will be displayed. This will start up cantata , with the demo predefined for you. The setup was saved in a file called demo.workspace.Z . They represent a Quit, Edit and Run functionality. Parameters can use the program default by unsetting the option button.