The applets accessible through this web site have been written to run correctly with version 2.0 of the JAVA^TM language.  Support of backward compatibility with Java 1.1 has been discontinued.

In order to view the applets, your browser should have a recent JAVA 2 plug-in installed.  All the new applet versions are designed to work best with release 1.5 or higher of the JDK, but they are backward compatible with other releases of Java 2 (although occasionally minor differences in the appearance of some fonts may be noticed).

The software has been designed to work with Windows XP or higher.  Recommended browsers are Firefox and Internet Explorer.  The applets should work on any operating system with a browser that correctly implements the JAVA 2 plug-in, but other systems and browsers have not been tested systematically.  However, one should be able to execute the applet satisfactorily with Firefox under all operating systems, if the browser is set up correctly.

Most of the minor problems encountered in older web browsers have been resolved by recent releases incorporating the 1.5 JDK version of the JAVA plug-in.  Depending on the browser installed, the applets may still work on computers using Windows 95/98/NT/ME/2000 but these operating systems are not supported any longer. 

Because of internet security features, there is additional Java initialization time the first time an applet is opened after rebooting the computer.  Typically, these security checks are executed only once and applet loading should proceed at normal speed afterwards.  With older versions of the JAVA plug-in, a delay was encountered when opening the first Java animation in a given browsing session. This delay was also due to security checks, but it is not present when recent versions of the JAVA plug-in are installed, with JDK release 1.5 or higher.

After opening an applet with a recent release of Internet Explorer, one needs to click anywhere inside the applet to activate it.