Platform Capabilities And Constraints

The platform we are choosing to use is the Java 1.3 (possibly 1.4) system and language. This gives us the greatest flexibility for target platforms, and with recent advances in GUI interfaces for Java, we predict that the performance will not be a factor. The following potential constraints exist for this chosen platform:

1. The Swing API, while portable, can be slow and hard to understand. 2. The look changes for each target platform, so tests must be run to verify that the application works for each target. 3. The performance of Java can be too slow for some operations. We'll have to measure the interface performance as we go to make sure that it works well enough for users. 4. Installation on some systems can be difficult for Java programs. We'll have to look into different installers.

In addition to Java, we are targeting the following Operating System platforms:

• Windows 98,2000, and XP on Intel x86
• Linux on Index x86
• Macintosh OS X on PPC

These platforms all have fairly stable Java implementations and have desktop style applications written in Java already.

Specific Hardware Requirements

We are targetting a fairly robust machine at first due to the "bloated" nature of Java. Several other applications, such as jEdit (http://www.jedit.org) prove that it is very possible to write responsive and attractive interfaces using Java. At first we will assume a fast configuration, and then--once the system is stable--strive to make it run on less enabled machines. The configuration we are targetting initially is:

• 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.
• 256MB 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.