Platform Independent Perseus 2

(Perseus Tk)

Please note that as of 2/9/99 Platform Independent Perseus has been delivered to Yale University Press. This means that beta testing has been concluded and that bug reports are no longer necessary (we still welcome comments and questions on the software). The publication schedule and pricing of the software will be determined by Yale University Press. As we receive information on the status of Platform Independent Perseus, we will post it prominently on-line.

This is the second beta release of Platform Independent Perseus 2 and the first public beta release. It is based on the Tcl/Tk package by John Ousterhout from Scriptics Corporation and runs on MacOS and on Win32 platforms (Windows95, Windows 98, and Windows NT).

This release is feature-complete: all of the texts, catalogs, maps, secondary sources, and searching tools should be in place. A big advantage of Platform Independent Perseus (aside from being cross-platform) lies in its ability to get its data from the Internet as easily as from a hard drive or CD-ROM. This release is therefore data-less and gets all texts, search results, etc. from the Perseus server. Once beta testing is complete, the data will be published on CD-ROMs by Yale University Press.

We hope you will find this release useful and interesting.

Downloading and setup

1. Operating system and memory requirements

Macintosh: System 8.0 or newer; Platform Independent Perseus is untested on System 7.x. System should have at least 16 MB RAM total; the application Platform Independent Perseus should be set to run on 8-9 MB RAM (less RAM is possible with fewer images and maps open); disk space should have at least 5 MB disk free. Direct or dial-up internet connection.

Documentation for Unix and Linux operating systems is not yet available.

2. Greek Fonts

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Help/Athenian_Font.html

3. Download Platform Independent Perseus

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/software?pack=2.0b2

4. Setup

PC:

Following download, the file Setup will appear on your desktop (or in another directory if you specified one when you answered the Save As dialogue box.)
Double-click the file Setup.
Click OK.
WinZip Self Extractor dialogue box: Click Unzip (this will put a folder called Perseus on the top level of your C:\ drive, which you can relocate later if you wish).
Click Close when you're done.

Go to the directory Perseus and open it.
Double-click the program Perseus.
The Perseus Gateway will appear.
You may refer to selected Help topics in the help menu.

Mac:

Following download, the file Perseus.sea will appear on your desktop (or in another folder if you specified one when your Mac asked you).
Double-click the file Perseus.sea.
Go to the folder Perseus and open it.
Double-click the application Perseus.
You may refer to selected Help topics in the help menu.

N. B. What you have installed locally is the software containing the Perseus user interface. Although the data continues to reside at the Perseus web site, it is not necessary to run Netscape or IE while using Perseus. The data will be published on CDs (see note at the top of this page).

If problems arise or you want to report a bug, send email to: beta@perseus.tufts.edu (Please note that beta testing has concluded but we welcome comments on the software.)

There are three known Mac bugs:

• The Perseus menu is white.
• The Atlas Navigator arrow buttons appear skewed.
• Regions in the graphic Index of maps are opaque.