HLPWWW (Version 8.7) JESS copyright (C) 1985-2019 Licensee : Webmaster, Murdoch University, Australia Welcome. Friday, 26-Apr-24 18:48 JESS Implementation =================== The Jess software package is generally supplied as a compressed file which includes a suite of executable programs and a suite of databases. How to install the package is described in several documents (with overlapping content) to be found in JesDoc\Manuals\Users\Implementation In essence, you copy the Jess top directory (folder) on to your computer and set up some required environmental variables. On computers running Windows operating systems, you should also establish a short-cut to invoke an MS-DOS window with appropriate properties. Jess functions as command-driven procedures within such an MS-DOS window. The licence conditions which accompany all distributions of Jess require two matching character strings (the 'Licensee identifier' and the 'Checksum'). These strings must be made available to Jess programs via the relevant environment variables (as described in the Implementation documentation). The large majority of Jess programs will not run unless they have a valid Licensee identifier and Checksum. It is essential that both are copied EXACTLY from the information provided with the licence & software package.
Jess has a long history and was conceived in an era when it was necessary for it to function under many computer operating systems. Jess was therefore designed to port easily across software and hardware platforms. A key design decision was to adopt a subset of FORTRAN77, selected precisely to minimize the likelihood of portability problems. Our hope that this strategy would also reward us by allowing the system to be ported onto future platforms, inconceivable in 1985 when work on Jess commenced, has been wonderfully fulfilled. At present, Jess is used most often on computers running a Windows operating system. Windows7 and Windows10 implementations are fully functional and interchangeable. Most current Jess development is carried out in these computer environments. We still use a FORTRAN compiler obtained from Lahey for most of our development work. However, versions of Jess have also been compiled with the (Unix) GNU FORTRAN compiler, and these appear to operate almost identically and interchangeably with the Lahey versions. Jess is also implemented under several Unix operating systems with full functionality. These versions include one for Macintosh computers and one for OpenBSD (the latter being used to drive the Jess website.) Unfortunately, the rapidly-changing nature of the Macintosh environment has made it difficult for us to keep up in this context. Most recently, we have implemented JESS on a 'Strawberry pi' system. All inquiries in this regard are now welcome.