This page is devoted to not-for-profit tools that can be used by any not-for-profit (or anyone else). It is a listing of tools that are in the public domain and freely available.
Accounting Software
- GNUCASH - This is an opensource small business financial accounting software. It has double-entry accounting amongst other features.
Office Software
- LIBREOFFICE - This is an opensource office suite of programs including a word processor, spreadsheet program, a slide presentation program and a database program.
- SCRIBUS - This is a full featured desktop publishing program.
- LATEX - This is a high quality typesetting program specifically designed for technical and scientific documentation. It is not a word processor but rather a type-setting program. It handles mathematical equations really well and there is quite a bit of user support online. It saves the master file as a text file and then from that it can generate a ghostscript or PDF file all type-setted. (https://www.latex-project.org/ )
- Project Jupyter - This allows for notebooks to be made using a markdown feature. These can then be used to generate a LaTex document. In addition it includes a Python shell and can support other programming languages. It is the basis of online systems such as Amazon SageMaker Notebooks, Google Colaboratory (Colab) and Microsoft's Azure Notebook. This is probably the future of scientific publishing and it is well beyond Mathematica. Colab for instance also uses generative AI. YARS will probably start using this and LaTex in the near future.
- Internet Archive: - If old software is your thing, the Internet Archive has a collection of abandoned-ware. Consider WordPerfect on Linux and the whole retrofuturism/steampunk movement. Your old computers may be old and unable to use new software, but maybe that is not really a problem and you can use old software. For an NPO this is definitely an option and very economical.
Amateur Radio
- Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine - This link takes one to various publications re: amateur radio.
- 101 Spy Gadgets For The Evil Genius : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
- Download & Streaming : The Internet Archive Software Collection : Internet Archive
- FLDIGI - a suite of digital mode software which includes ability to send pre-formatted ICS and RAC Radiogram message traffic
- WJST-X - a suite of weak signal digital mode software including FST4, FST4W, FT4, FT8, JT4, JT9, JT65, Q65, MSK144, and WSPR and ECHO for moon-bounce. Some of these modes are used for meteor-scatter. Local amateurs have been experimenting with that. These modes use a fair bit of processing power as they use algorithms that make use of Forward Error Correction (so that 8088 XT, without the math-coprocessor that you have, just will not cut it). We thank Joe Taylor, K1JT for putting these into the public domain.
- Project Jove - A NASA program to encourage STEM. One can build a radio telescope to observe the interaction of the solar wind and the aurora of Jupiter and some of its moons (Jovian decametric radio signals).
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_electronics_circuit_simulators
Operating Systems (especially for older computers)
- https://linuxmint.com/
- https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/
- https://sourceforge.net/directory/ham-radio/
- https://archive.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS
The amateur radio service has a tradition of recycling old equipment for its purposes including ex-military equipment, obsolete computers and old electronics and other things that can be re-used. The tradition is in part due to economy but it also facilitates resourcefulness, inventiveness and adaptation. This ties into an underlying philosophy of the Society - that we are the masters of technology and that technology serves us - we do not serve technology. Think of what that last statement means...