Black Cat Systems publishes a variety of software programs, all for the Macintosh. We specialize in Mac software, in fact, we only write software for the Mac. Here at Black Cat Systems, we don't do windows.
The following is a brief listing of some of our most popular programs. Take a look, and see if any programs are of interest.
We distribute all of our programs as shareware. This means that you get to download and try the programs absolutely for free. You don't pay anything until you've thoroughly tried and tested the program, and you're ready to register it. When you are, you can register quickly and safely online via our web site, or mail in your payment if you prefer. We'll send your registration code out to you via email as soon as we process your order.
Please visit our web site at http://www.blackcatsystems.com to find out more about our software, or to download any of our programs.
If you have any questions or comments about our software, or have suggestions for improvement or bugs to report, please don't hesitate to contact us, we want to hear from you. We take program suggestions very seriously. Many of our programs' features started as suggestions from users.
You can contact us via email at info@blackcatsystems.com
General Interest:
Diet Sleuth¬
iUnit¬
The Atomic Mac¬
Audio:
Audiocorder¬
Sound Byte¬
Amateur Radio:
Elmer¬
Mac Antenna Master¬
Mac GrayLiner¬
Mac Prop¬
Morse Mania¬
MultiMode¬
Diet Sleuth¬
Diet Sleuth is a nutritional database and personal health logbook for the Macintosh. Up to five people can use Diet Sleuth on a single computer. Diet Sleuth allows you to keep track of what foods you eat each day, and their nutritional value. For each day, you select the foods you have eaten, and the number of servings of each. Diet Sleuth will automatically calculate your caloric intake, fat grams, carbohydrates, fiber, protein, cholesterol, along with sodium, potassium, and calcium.
You can select from over 5000 different foods from 21 categories, including fast food, lunchmeat, junk food, seafood, and baby food.
In addition to the included food groups, you can create and edit your own foods in a separate catagory. You can also create a category of favorite foods to quickly access commonly used foods.
A built-in Recipe Editor allows you to quickly enter a custom recipe, with the nutritional information automatically calculated, based on the ingedients.
A Weight Manager allows you to track your weight, and compute your percent body fat, metabolism, and estimate weight loss.
Graphing features allow you to easily visualize your nutritional intake and weight over time.
iUnit¬
iUnit is a conversion program for the Macintosh. You can convert between 311 different units quickly and easily. iUnit also displays the values of 42 phsyical constants. iUnit converts between the following types of units:
Acceleration
Angle
Area
Capacitance
Density
Distance
Electrical Conductance
Electrical Charge
Energy
Force
Industrial Weight Per Area Units
Luminous Luminence
Luminous Intensity
Magnetic Flux
Magnetic Flux Density
Magnetic Field Strength
Mass
Moment-Torque
Power
Pressure
Radiation Activity
Temperature
Time
Velocity
Volume
Volume Flow Rate
In addition, iUnit displays the values of the following types of constants:
Mathematical
Physical
Planets
The Atomic Mac¬
The Atomic Mac is the award winning periodic table of the elements for the Macintosh. In addition to the usual information found in such programs, The Atomic Mac also contains a wealth of nuclear information on each isotope, including half life, decay mode, and daughter products. No other periodic table of the elements has more data than The Atomic Mac!
X-ray data (fluorescence and binding energies) is also available, as well as electron shell information and alpha particle energies. In addition you can view the visible spectra, and get a table of wavelengths and relative amplitudes. A molecular weight calculator makes it easy to find the molecular weight of compounds. A shaded diagram showing the ranges of physical properties makes it easy to visualize relationships across the periodic table.
Data is displayed for the following physical properties:
Density
Heat of Vaporization
Heat of Fusion
Specific Heat
Thermal Conductivity
Linear Expansion Coefficient
Melting Point
Boiling Point
Atomic Radius
Covalent Radius
Magnetic Susceptability
Electrical Resistivity
Electron Affinity
Electric Dipole Polarizability
State (gas, liquid, solid)
Photoelectric Work Function
Electronegativity
Crystal Structure
Abundance in Earth's Crust
Abundance in Earth's Sea
Abundance in Solar System
Number of Isotopes
Number of Naturally Occuring Isotopes
Number of Stable Isotopes
Audiocorder¬
Audiocorder is a sophisticated audio recording program for your Macintosh. First, it can work like a VOX recorder. This allows you to set the volume that the sound must reach to begin recording, and the volume at which it should end recording. It also allows you to set the trigger length for the start and stop values, which helps you to eliminate recording short bursts of sound or ending the recording process during a short pause (such as in normal speech). A start and stop button allow manual recording.
In addition, you can create a schedule for up to 50 recordings, specifying the time and date each recording should start and stop, much like a VCR. This makes Audiocorder perfect for automated recording from many sources. You can have each sound recording stored in a separate file, or they can all be sequentially stored in one file. In addition, Audiocorder can also play back AIFF sound files, including those recorded by other programs.
Audiocorder is perfect for many applications, such as:
Digitizing a record album or tape. Each song will be stored as its own file, ready for you to burn onto a CD, etc. Recording audio from a scanner or other radio. Rather than recording lots of dead air, only periods with audio will be recorded. Recording sounds from nature, such as birds. Automated recording of radio programs.
Each sound file is stored in AIFF format, a Macintosh standard sound format. The audio can be sampled at 11, 22 or 44 kHz, with a sample size of 8 or 16 bits, monophonic or stereo. The name of each file contains the date and time (down to seconds) the recording began.
Attention iBook Owners Audiocorder has been tested and found to work with the Telex H-531 USB microphone, and should work with other USB microphones as well. You can read our USB Microphone tutorial for details.
Sound Byte¬
Sound Byte is a computerized cart machine for the Macintosh. It is very similar to the so-called cart machines used at radio stations in the past. Each recording - a jingle, advertisement, etc, was on a cartidge, which could be quickly selected and played.
Sound Byte brings the cart machine to the computer age. You can select up to 75 recordings per rack, and assign each to a button. Clicking on a button plays that recording. Multiple recordings can be played at the same time. A playlist feature allows you to organize sound clips to be played in a particular order.
An audio playthrough feature is available. This enables you to mix audio clips with sound input coming through your microphone.
Mac Antenna Master¬
An antenna design package for the Mac. It takes you step by step through the design of the following types of antennas:
Dipole
Fat Dipole
Yagi
J-Pole
Super J-Pole
Log Periodic
Cubic Quad
Vertical
It also performs the following calculations:
Coil Design
LC Filter Design
Transmission Line Loss
Mac GrayLiner¬
Displays a map of the entire Earth, showing day, night, and more importantly, the terminator between day and night. Studies have shown that enhanced radio propagation occurs between two points which are both on the day/night terminator.
In addition, the locations of active NCDXF/IARU beacons can be displayed in real time, along with the beacon callsign, country, and location. This should be helpful for identifying DX openings.
Mac Prop¬
A Propagation Forecasting application for the Macintosh. MacProp calculates the Maximum Usable Frequency (MUF) for propagation between your location and over 2500 points over the entire Earth, and displays them on a convenient map.
Mac Prop is an excellent tool to help forecast which frequencies and bands should be used for communications between different parts of the world on shortwave radio. It is geared towards amateur radio operators and shortwave listeners.
Elmer¬
Elmer will help you study for your amateur radio exams. Elmer covers all elements, and prepares actual sample exams, which you take on your Mac. Each exam is graded, and you get to see which questions you missed, and the correct answer. By practicing with Elmer, you'll improve your chances of passing your ham radio exam.
Morse Mania¬
Morse Mania is a morse code tutor for the Macintosh. It provides the following three modules to help you learn morse code:
Learn Characters - Each character is displayed on the screen as it is being played. This is useful when you're first learning the morse alphabet, as it helps you link each sound to the corresponding character.
Guess a Character - Characters are played, and you must type the key of the character sent. At the end of the exercise, your score is displayed.
Copy Groups - Random five letter groups are sent (and displayed on the screen). You select how
many groups you would like to have sent, and practice by copying the groups down. At the end of the exercise, compare what you copied to what was actually sent.
It also supports Farnsworth mode. In this mode, the individual dots and dashes are sent faster, but the spacing between characters is increased, so the overall speed remains the same.
Farnsworth is useful when first learning morse code, so you don't reach the "plateau" around 7 wpm, where you can't copy any faster, because you learned the individual dots and dashes that make up each character, rather than the overall sound.
MultiMode¬
MultiMode is an application which allows your Macintosh to decode several different modes of non-voice communication often heard on shortwave. You can also transmit in many of these modes, as well.
In the past, dedicated hardware, often costing hundreds or thousands of dollars, was necessary to demodulate and decode these transmissions. Today, you can use the processing power of your Macintosh to decode and display these modes, without any hardware.
MultiMode requires a Macintosh with a fast (604 or G3/G4) PowerPC (PPC) processor.
You also need a radio capable of tuning in the frequency ranges of interest. For most modes, this is a shortwave radio. For ACARS mode, a common VHF band scanner is used.
The audio from your radio (speaker or headphone jack) is fed into your Mac's sound input port, through an appropriate cable. The radio is tuned to the station, and the correct mode is selected. MultiMode has a feature which displays the audio spectrum of the station, as a tuning aid.
MultiMode allows you to decode and transmit morse code, RTTY, FAX, SSTV, PACKET, PSK31, ALE, and many other modes on your Mac, without any extra hardware! MultiMode features sophisticated digital filters, for pulling weak signals out of the noise.
