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