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Hard and Software Requirements

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Hardware Requirements

* System
By using software standards provided by most computer manufactures, ESO-MIDAS runs on VMS and OpenVMS systems (Trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation) =, a large variety of UNIX (Trademark of AT&T) platform, as well as one personal computers (386, 486, Pentium) running Linux. Below follows a list of machines on which successfully installed and tested:
The availability for a specific system can be checked by asking the MIDAS Hot-Line.

* Memory
Depending on the number of users of the systems but normally at least 8 Mbyte. A physical memory that is too small may significantly reduce the performance due to swapping of data to disk.

* Disk
The full MIDAS system requires of the order of 20 Mbyte of disk storage if shared libraries (e.g. SUN, PC/Linux) are available, otherwise up to 100 Mbyte may be needed. During installation an extra 10 Mbyte should be available for temporary files such as object code. The size of the system can be reduced in three ways: a) source files can be deleted after implementation, b) help files can be removed if on-line help is not required, and c) parts of the system which are not used (e.g. crowded field photometry or echelle packages) need not be loaded. A typical disk size for a single user system is approximately 200 Mbyte assuming 60 Mbyte for the operation system, 80 Mbyte for MIDAS, and 50-100 Mbyte for a user with two-dimensional data.

* Terminals
Any alpha-numeric terminal can be used. MIDAS can either work in a simple line-by-line mode or provide special features such as line editing by using a terminal definition file for special terminal features.

* Image Displays
MIDAS uses the Image Display Interfaces which provides a general interface to image display devices. IDI-routines are available for DeAnza IP 8500 and X Window. The X Window System, Version 11, will be supported as the general interface to workstations. Other devices can be used if an appropriate set of IDI-routines are written. A list of currently available IDI-routines can be obtained from the ESO Data Management Division.

* Printers
The graphics software of MIDAS uses the device independent plotting library AGL (Astronet Graphical Library) developed and maintained by the Italian ASTRONET group. Drivers for a significant number of different devices are available e.g. Tektronix 4010/4015, X Window System, Version 11 and PostScript (see a complete list The MIDAS Users Guide, Volume 1, Chapter 6). It is possible to write drivers for devices for which none exist.

Software Requirements

* System
VAX/VMS or UNIX operating systems.

* Compilers
C- and FORTRAN-77 compilers (a FORTRAN-to-C convertion package may be used instead of a FORTRAN-77 compiler).

* AGL library
This lower level library is used for all graphics application in MIDAS. The library is released with the standard MIDAS release but can also be obtained from the Italian ASTRONET.

* NAG Library
This library is made by Numerical Algorithms Group and is used in a few packages such as fitting. It is under license and can be purchased from the Numerical Algorithms Group. MIDAS can be installed without this library in which case some commands will be unavailable.
Comments on this screen can be sent to eso-midas <midas@eso.org>
Last update: Feb 23, 1996