PNtalk System Download

PNtalk system is distributed freely a for non-commercial use. It is available in the form of an image for the ParcPlace VisualWorks Smalltalk object engine 2.0. The object engine is a part of the PNtalk distribution. In the case, you do not want to use only pure object-oriented Petri nets but you want to combine them with Smalltalk features, you will need not only the object engine but the entire VisualWorks Smalltalk package. In this case, you could try implementing the necessary Smalltalk classes under VisualWorks 3.0 whose Linux and Windows versions can be downloaded for free from the WWW pages of ObjectShare (a new name for ParcPlace). Subsequently, you can import the appropriate classes into VisualWorks 2.0 and use them in PNtalk. As for straight running PNtalk under VisualWorks 3.0, this is unfortunately impossible with the current version of PNTalk due to some changes in the VW 3.0 system compared to VW 2.0...

To obtain the PNtalk system, please perform the following steps:

Download the license agreement form, fill it in and send it back to vojnar@dcse.fee.vutbr.cz.
Download the encrypted and compressed image for Solaris or Windows (about 2 MB).
If you are using Solaris, decrypt the file pntalk.tar.gz.pgp by means of the pgp utility (pgp -d pntalk.tar.gz.pgp), and uncompress the resulting file by means of the standard gunzip and tar utilities (gunzip pntalk.tar.gz, tar xvf pntalk.tar). If you are using Windows, uncompress and decrypt the file pntalk.zip by means of pkunzip (pkunzip -s pntalk.zip). For decrypting use the password which will be sent to you by e-mail after finishing the first step.
If you do not have the object engine, you can download it for using together with PNtalk in Solaris or Windows. After having downloaded it, you can decrypt and uncompress it in the same as the image in the previuos step. In Solaris, perform "chmod a+x oe20" to make the engine executable.
Start the VisualWorks system by the command "oe20 pntalk.im" where oe20 is the Smalltalk object engine whose name can vary according to the platform, version etc.
Start the PNtalk system from the VisualWorks Launcher by pressing the button PNtalk (all other buttons and menu items do not concern PNtalk but Smalltalk - see the notes below and also the manual).

Notes:

If there are problems with unknown paths to files distributed with oe20, the proper values can be set by means of the menu File|Settings. This menu can be used also for changing font sizes, colours etc.
If you want to work with classes described by means of Petri nets only, it is sufficient to have the VisualWorks object engine and no other files are necessery. In this case, the only think you will use from the VisualWorks Launcher is the button PNtalk. However, PNtalk allows you to use all regular Smalltalk classes either standard or defined by an user. In this case, it is necessary to have a complete installation of VisualWorks package and to adjust file paths in the File|Settings dialog box.
The "pntalk.cha" file contains source code of a uniform and an exponential random generator and some classes for collecting statistics which can be used to get inspired how to create such supporting classes.

If you have any problems with PNtalk system installing or using, please contact vojnar@dcse.fee.vutbr.cz. We will try to solve your problems and improve PNtalk. But please, be tolerant, the current version of PNtalk is an early prototype only.

[PNtalk Project Home Page]

If you have any comments to this page or to the PNtalk system please send a message to vojnar@dcse.fee.vutbr.cz.
Last modified at 28/8/1997.