Author: JT Smith
the leading supplier of Motif(r) products and support, today announced
that the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) chose Linux to host
the upgrade to their Electrification Display System.” This system tracks
the flow of electricity from the high voltage DC power lines of Pacific
Gas and Electric to the distribution of electricity via the third rail.
If an emergency required the evacuation of a train, this system would be
used to turn off the electricity to ensure the safety of passengers as
they exited the system.
BART also selected Open Motif for their GUI toolkit, ICS’ Builder Xcessory
PRO to build their application user interface and LOOX++ from LOOX Software
for the visualization aspects of the application. Open Motif was selected
because of developer knowledge, use by existing applications, and “rock
solid stability”. Builder Xcessory PRO was chosen because of its ability
to quickly build and tailor the user interface in response to user input.
BART selected LOOX++ to simplify the graphical display of the model of
the Electrification Display System.
In reviewing their decision, the BART implementation team estimated
that they saved between 15 to 20 percent of the total project budget through
the use of commodity PC hardware, not having to purchase software licenses
for the operating environment and the use of rapid development tools such
as ICS’ Builder Xcessory PRO.
Further Details
Further details of this Linux success can be read at http://www.ics.com/bart
. The April issue of the Linux Journal includes a summary of BART’s decision
and experience too.
About Integrated Computer Solutions
Founded in 1987, ICS (http://www.ics.com) was chartered to provide software
development tools and training for developers working with the then emerging
X Window System(tm). Prior to the widespread adoption of Motif by the UNIX
workstation vendors, ICS was the leading independent supplier of the Motif
toolkit. In 1998, The Open Group chose ICS to provide technical support
for its Motif source code licenses.
Today, ICS’ Builder Xcessory PRO (BX PRO) is the market leader in Motif
graphical user interface development tools. In its fifth major release
and representing over 100 person years of effort, BX PRO defines a level
of sophistication, functionality and ease of use that is unmatched in the
industry. In November of 1999, the combination of BX PRO from ICS and Code
Fusion from Red Hat software was awarded the Editor´s Choice award
for the Best New Application for Software Development by The Linux Journal.
Commenting on the importance of this alliance, The Linux Journal described
the software as “…the first Visual C/C++ equivalent for Linux.”
ICS sponsors the MotifZone (http://www.motifzone.net), a community site
for Motif developers to gather additional knowledge and request input on
technical problems from other engineers. The MotifZone also hosts the Public
CVS source code repository for Open Motif as well as the defect database.
# # #
UNIX and Motif are registered trademarks of The Open
Group in the US and other countries. The Open Group and the X Window System
are trademarks of The Open Group. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus
Torvalds. All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.
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