172 a 
" re 
¢) Use of ANSI FORTRAN wherever possible, the, only. excep- it 
tions being microcode in the Array. Processor „and some hc 
assembly code in time critical areas of other processors it 
constitutiug ARIES-II. a 
si 
d) The provision of a large library of FORTRAN callable com- th 
mon software routines. Most of these routines have been pr 
especially developed for image processing requirements. Th 
ac 
e) Use of a sophisticated operating system. ARIES-II runs wi 
under the DEC operating systems recognized throughout the ta 
industry for.its superior performance particularly in a 
multi-tasking, resource limited environment. 
th 
fj Careful attention to error reporting. All ARIES-II -er- at 
rors are logged in hard copy format. listing all details mo 
of the error together with the precise time of occur- il 
rence. on 
ca 
g) The provision of making the source code available to the mi 
user at a Very reasonable price. This allows. the ‚user. to pr 
add his own specific application oriented' tasks to the 
existing software package. : 
It is through dedicated adherence to this software policy Su: 
that DIPIX Systems Limited is confident that ARIES-II software meets ho: 
the highest possible standards. st: 
ne 
OPERATOR INTERACTION All operator interaction with an ARIES- 
II system is exercised from the Operator's Terminal. Operator com- 
munication is implemented via a software package called "Operator 
Interaction System (OIS)". This package provides virtually all of 
the services usually required for operator input and output, includ- 
ing error checking and message sequencing, thus relieving the appli- 
cation software of many of these housekeeping functions. Most 
important, all operator's messages are held in a common disk file. 
This has two major advantages over the traditional manner of embed- 
ding operator's messages into the executable code: 
1. The size of the task image is much reduced. 
2. Messages may be easily modified without changing the pro- 
gram itself. In fact, the message file can be translated 
into a language other than English, if required. 
Another feature included în the OIS Structure is the simul- 
taneous multi-tasking support from a single operator's terminal. Up 
to 6 tasks at a time may be run from the terminal with OIS sequenc- 
ing the messages being sent and received from each task. The oper- 
ator may suspend any task while he communicates with another task. 
This feature has proven extremely useful when an Operator finds him- 
self well into the operator dialogue with a task and suddenly real- 
izes that he has overlooked performing another task first. Rather