Computers GEMPACK Runs On

Nearly all GEMPACK modellers use some version of the Windows operating system (either 32-bit or 64-bit XP or Vista). Nevertheless GEMPACK can be used in a non-Windows environment. To understand the issues involved, we must distinguish between two main types of GEMPACK program.

• Command-line, Fortran-based programs: Core command-line [non-GUI] programs, such as TABLO and GEMSIM, are written in Fortran, and could in principle be compiled and run on any computer with a standard Fortran compiler. Included in this group are the TABLO-generated model-specific EXE files created with Source-code GEMPACK.
• Visual [GUI] programs: Programs such as ViewHAR, TABmate, AnalyseGE are created with Borland Delphi, which can only create 32-bit Windows programs (these also run fine on 64-bit Windows). So none of these very useful programs can run under a non-Windows OS.

In previous times, when Windows PCs were less powerful, some people ran large GEMPACK models on mainframe or mini- computers, while preparing input files and viewing results on a Windows PC. Disadvantages included: the need for users to master the OS (often UNIX) of the remote machine; and the inconvenience of constantly copying input and result files between the two systems (often requiring file format conversions).

Today, PCs are much more powerful, and with 64-bit Windows, are able to solve very large models. Consequently, the number of non-Windows GEMPACK users has become very small.

We still offer, by special arrangement, a Unix edition of the Source-code Version of GEMPACK, but would urge users to consider the Windows alternatives. The Executable-Image Version of GEMPACK is available only in 32-bit Windows format (but runs also on 64-bit Windows).

GEMPACK on the Mac

Older Mac PCs contained special CPUs -- for which it was hard to find a good Fortran compiler. More recent Macs, using Intel CPUs and the OS X operating system, are more flexible. In particular we have heard (but not seen) that GEMPACK runs well on the 32-bit Windows virtual sessions provided via the Parallels Desktop.

GEMPACK on Linux

A Linux version of GEMPACK Release 8 was prepared -- but attracted little interest. Read more here.

Fortran file formats

Historically, each Fortran compiler used its own idiosyncratic format for binary files (such as HAR files). To share data with others, a special text interchange format was needed. GEMPACK still provides programs (RWHAR, MKHAR,RWSOL and MKSOL) to translate its binary files to and from text format.

Fortunately, it seems that most Fortran compilers for the x-86 CPUs (used by most Windows, Mac and Linux PCs) now have converged on the same format. This could assist inter-operability.