Plant Base is designed for computers running under any Microsoft
Windows 32-bit operating system, from Windows 95 to Vista (see notes about Vista
compatibility). Modern PCs and laptops will be more than
adequate and it will in fact run on quite old, low specification machines. MAC users - see below.
Minimum requirements summary:
Microsoft Windows 9x, ME, 2000, XP, Vista
Pentium processor
256Mb memory
300Mb disk space
1024x768 screen
mouse or other pointing device
CD-ROM (if installing from CD)
A processor speed of at least 450Mz is recommended. However we have run on much slower systems with acceptible results, even old 486 machines!
256Mb RAM or preferably more will give good performance, though
the program will run with less. Additional memory usually gives
better performance than faster processors.
Hard disk requirements will vary considerably depending on the
amount of data and pictures stored. The current version with all
its supplied data and images loaded needs about 300Mb. Most of
the space is taken up by plant pictures. Using the option to read
images directly from CD, only 24Mb is needed on the hard disk. A better option for anyone with limited hard disk space is to use an external drive such as a USB memory stick.
A CD-ROM drive is usually needed only for installation and optionally
for loading pictures at run time, if they were not installed onto
the hard disk.
A reasonably good monitor is very important. The minimum recommended
screen resolution is 1024x768, although it is possible to run
at 800x600. Full colour display is needed to view pictures.
(We are hoping to produce a special "compact" edition for sub-notebooks).
An internet connection is not required. Plant Base is
a stand-alone PC application. However, it is now possible to create
plant references in the form of web hyperlinks. Clicking a hyperlink
will attempt to open that web page in your default browser. The
Plant Base program does not itself access the Internet directly.
We have at least one user who has sucessfully run Plant Base on an Apple Mac with Windows emulation. The system used was:-
PowerPC G5
1.8Ghz
2Gb RAM
MAC OSX 10.3.9
VirtualPC version 7 with Windows XP Home
At some time in the future we plan to produce a native MAC OS edition of Plant Base.
