RAMAS GIS 2.0 Technical Requirements

Also see RAMAS GIS 3.0 Technical Requirements
        and RAMAS GIS 4.0 Technical Requirements
        and RAMAS GIS 5.0 Technical Requirements.

System: MS-DOS version 5.0 or later.

Hardware: IBM-compatible personal computer with at least 2 megabytes of free hard disk space, and VGA or EGA graphics monitor. Printers supported are Epson MX or LQ, Hewlett Packard Laser Jet or Ink Jet, IBM Graphics or Proprinter, Okidata or Toshiba P or compatible printers. The program will run significantly faster if there is a math coprocessor installed.

Memory: At least 512K of free RAM is required; expanded memory (EMS) is strongly recommended. The maximum number and size of the GIS maps, and maximum number populations, stages, replications and time steps depend on the availability of expanded memory. You can change the default values of maxima by increasing them up to the upper limits given below, or decreasing them down to 1.

                                Default     Upper limit
     age classes or stages           7            15
     populations                    50           160
     time steps                    100           500
     replications                1,000        10,000
     GIS maps                        3             9
     map rows                       80          5000
     map columns                   100          5000

GIS data requirements: Your GIS data layers must have the following: (i) the maps must be in raster format; (ii) all layers must be numerical; (iii) all must describe the landscape with the same precision (i.e., number of cells in both north-south and east-west directions should be the same); (iv) coverage of all maps must be identical (the corners of the rectangular area described by all maps should be the same); (v) the number of columns must be the same for each row; (vi) the "cells" (i.e., locations given a value by the map) must be arranged in a square (not hexagonal) format; (vii) the maximum number of rows and columns depend on the available memory, but each cannot exceed 5000. The formats supported are:

GRASS: Exported as an ASCII file from GRASS (with header). See description of r.out.ascii in the GRASS Reference Manual. Do not use the option -h.

IDRISI: Raster (image) file of IDRISI in binary or ASCII format. The document or description file (.DOC) must also be in the same directory as the image file (.IMG). The image can be ASCII (integer or real) or binary (byte, integer, real), but not packed binary.

ARC/INFO: Exported as an ASCII file from ARC/Info (with header). See description of the command GRIDASCII in ARC Command References in the ARC/Info manual.

blanks: ASCII format (no header); each row of map must be in a single line (terminated by line-feed/carriage-return characters), and values must be separated by blanks. If each row takes more than one line in the file, the "fixed grid" format must be used.

fixed grid: ASCII format (no header); each row of map may be in one or more lines. Cell values must be separated by blanks. Number of columns (i.e., the number of cells in each row) must be specified.

If you get a "Not enough memory" message, even though your computer has at least 4 megabtyes of RAM:

This applies only to versions 1 and 2 of RAMAS GIS and RAMAS Metapop (for DOS). These versions can use two types of memory: conventional RAM (first 640 Kbytes) and expanded memory (EMS). In order to use memory over the first 640 Kbytes, the memory must be available as expanded (not extended) memory. If your computer is a 386 or above, running DOS 5.0 or later, you can do this by adding a statement to the file CONFIG.SYS for a device driver such as EMM386.EXE. Read the section on expanded memory in your DOS manual. (You should not do this if you are using a memory management software such as QEMM; in this case, consult the manual for that software).

For DOS 6.1 and above, you can also use the program MEMMAKER (that comes with DOS) to make the necessary changes to CONFIG.SYS. The use of this program is explained in your DOS manual. When you use MEMMAKER, the program will ask you if any applications you run use expanded memory. You must answer "Yes" to this question.

After your CONFIG.SYS file is updated, it should have lines such as these (note that this is only an example):

    DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
    DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE 4096
    DOS=HIGH,UMB

If the second line is missing, or if it has the option "NOEMS" specified, then RAMAS will not be able to make use of all your available memory.

RAMAS is a registered trademark of Applied Biomathematics. Other companies and trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective companies.