Platform Capabilities And Constraints

After attempting to use Java Swing to develop the Obversive GUI, and running into problems with R as a backend, we decided to move to C++ and several cross platform toolkits for our development platform. We have successfully compiled Obversive on all of our target platforms and have had success in implementing many of the features we required. Our initial set of targets are:

• Windows 98,2000, and XP on Intel x86
• Linux on Intel x86 (possibly other forms which support X-Windows and GCC/G++)
• Macintosh OS X on PPC (using the Apple X-Windows or XDarwin system)

Each of these platforms are supported by our development toolset, and we are investigating cross compilation techniques to target additional platforms.

Specific Hardware Requirements

Our testing has shown that the current build of ObveRsive will actually support fairly small platforms. The only real limitation is the availability of R on each platform, and whether the user's machine can handle the processing required by R. We have reduced the RAM requirements based on this testing, but have left the other requirements in place.

• A system with a graphical input device and a mouse pointer. Notice this rules out any "Blind Adaptive" interfaces.
• At least a 800Mhz Intel or 600Mhz PPC processor.
• 128MB of RAM minimum.
• Disk space is not an issue these days, but at least a 1G drive (can you even install Windows on a 1G?)
• No sound card required.