Tycho under Windows

The Windows port of Tycho is fairly young, so there are plenty of bugs. The only testing of this port was done under NT4.0, so Windows3.1 and Windows95 users may have other problems.

External Windows Tcl places to go

  • Tycho distribution at UC Berkeley
  • Tcl/Tk on Windows FAQ
  • Tcl and Itcl Internet Resources
  • Tycho/Windows bugs

  • Tycho0.1.1 does not handle spaces in pathnames very well. Tycho will work best if the distribution is installed in a directory that has a pathname that contains no spaces.
  • It would be nice if the installation was such that a windows user could just mouse on a Tycho Icon and then tycho would come up.
  • Don't use Itcl2.1 under windows, it does not support removing files and making directories. If you use Itcl2.1, then Tycho execs rm or mkdir, which fail under windows. Instead of using Itcl2.1 under windows, use the Itcl2.2 binaries
  • Because of differences in the end-of-line characters between Unix and Windows, it appears that tcl scripts edited with the NT Notebook program cannot be sourced with Itcl2.2.
  • Tycho cannot access web pages over the net. Under Unix, the workaround is to start up Netscape. Under NT, this does not work, Netscape starts up, and the following message appears:
    Error: Unable to locate REG.INI in directory C:\Program Files\Netscape\Navigator\Program
  • Installing Tycho Under NT

    1. The Tycho home page at http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/tycho/Tycho.html has a link to the downloads page that contains Tycho sources and Itcl binaries for Windows.
    2. Install Itcl by running itcl22.exe.
    3. Because of a bug in Itcl2.2, the path leading up to the tycho.0.1.1/lib/windows/tycho-windows.itk script cannot have any spaces in it. If you installed Tycho in c:\Program Files, then you must move either c:\Program Files\tycho0.1.1\ or the tycho0.1.1\lib\windows\tycho-window.itk script to a directory that has no spaces in the pathname leading up to it. It is best if you move the entire tycho distribution to c:\tycho0.1.1.
    4. Tycho refers to the directory where the Tycho distribution is with the environment variable $TYCHO. In Unix, under csh, you would do something like setenv TYCHO /usr/local/tycho.

      You can either hardwire this variable by setting it in the tycho-windows start up script, or under NT, you can set the TYCHO environment variable by clicking on Start, then Settings, then Control Panel and finally the System icon. In the System Properties window that comes up, select Environment. There, you can add TYCHO as a User Variable. Incidentally, this is where you set your path.

      If your Tycho distribution is at c:\tycho0.1.1, then you need not set the TYCHO environment variable, it will be set for you, by the tycho-windows script. If your distribution is elsewhere, then you must either set the TYCHO variable, or edit tycho0.1.1/lib/windows/tycho-windows.

    5. The script tycho0.1.1/lib/windows/tycho-windows first checks the $TYCHO variable, and if $TYCHO is not set, then the script expects that the Tycho distribution will be at c:\tycho0.1.1.
    6. Itcl2.2 associates files with the itk extension with the itkwish binary. Apparently, the itk files must have Unix style end-of-line characters.

      To start Tycho, click on the tycho0.1.1/lib/windows/tycho-windows.itk script.

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    Copyright © 1996, The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
    Last updated: 96/12/17, comments to: tycho@eecs.berkeley.edu