Recommendations for Tango Interactive Platforms

Last updated: $Date: 1999/11/01 17:13:29 $

Background

One of Tango Interactive's strengths is its platform independence as it is based on standards such as Java and the Netscape browser. However it is now clear that Tango runs substantially better on some platforms than others. Here "better" means both more reliably and with higher performance and these measures are correlated as machines where Tango runs with poor performance are more likely to "crash" or just behave erratically due to overburdening of the system (CPU typically). Tango is dependent on four characteristics of the platform:

Intrinsic (Tango independent) quality of the Browser
Intrinsic quality of multimedia support.
Intrinsic quality of Java support (in Browser)
Quality of the Tango customization to particular operating environment.

It is well known that the market dominance of the PC architecture implies that basic browser support is superior here compared to UNIX and Apple platforms. Multimedia support for PC's is erratic and depends on particular video card and camera used. Some PC multimedia hardware is excellent with Tango. Some UNIX systems (such as SGI) have excellent multimedia support but this is often difficult to use due to support variation between the different SGI O/S versions. Therefore, we find it useful to define a recommended hardware platform for use with Tango.

Please note that this is not the only environment in which Tango Interactive will function, it is an environment which we have found to work reliably and well, and be reasonably priced. The braoder range of platforms we support, the harder and more expensive it is for us to keep up with all of the changes. Because it will be among the first and most frequently tested environments for Tango, the recommended platform below should also be the best supported Tango environment. Information is available about other platforms in brief or from the Tango Interactive web site.

Recommended Configurations

General Collaboration or Student Workstation

Name brand PC (do not by cheap clones)

400 MHz Pentium III or faster
128 MB RAM or more
8 GB HDD or more (can be IDE or ATA)

Good quality monitor (19" min) and appropriate graphics card capable of 1240x1024 True color recommended; 1152x864 True Color acceptable
Video: Winnow PCI Videum Conference Pro $359
Audio

Separate card unnecessary if Winnov card installed; otherwise SoundBlaster 64
External speakers are desirable in some circumstances and are quite inexpensive, so should be purchased
Headset + microphone: VXI Parrott 10-3 $59

Ethernet 10/100
CD-ROM drive
Software

Windows NT 4.0 SP5 (upgradable to Windows2000 as soon as possible)
Microsoft Office
Textpad
WinZIP
FTP client
Netscape Communicator 4.7
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5
Recommended: FTP server to allow access to NPAC support staff. (MS FTP server from Web Peer Services is acceptable)

Note: Critical software (OS, Service Packs, browsers, Tango plugin) should not be changed or upgraded without first checking with tango-support@npac.syr.edu for potential problems and to coordinate changes. For maximum reliability, browsers and Tango plugins in particular will need to be kept in sync throughout the userbase.

Instructor Workstation

For present time, we recommend that instructors use two of the above workstations to allow for separation of BuenaVista (A/V conferencing), which can be highly resource intensive in a one-to-many teaching environment, from the remaining Tango tools.

Eventually, we expect to recommend a single 2-processor system with more memory (256 MB) and larger monitor (1600x1200) as an alternative to using two separate workstations, but we have recently experienced subtle problems with Netscape on a handful of 2-CPU systems and do we would prefer to be cautious in our recommendations.

Additional features to consider for Instructor Workstation:

Increased memory (256 MB+)
Larger monitor and higher resolution graphics card (1600x1200 True Color)

If you have any questions or comments about these recommendations, please contact the Tango Interactive Support Team <tango-support@npac.syr.edu>