RAINS-ASIA: Technical hints for RAINS-Asia users

Some Technical Information for Installing the Software:

• RAINS-Asia, featuring emissions, emission control technologies and costs, atmospheric transport and impact assessment (developed by IIASA), and
• RESGEN (developed by Resource Management Associates, RMA), which serves as an energy scenario generating tool for RAINS-Asia.

To install and run the software you have to meet the following minimum system requirements:

• An IBM-compatible computer (Pentium, 486 processor, or 386 processor with mathematical co-processor)
• 43 MB of available hard disk space (35 MB for RAINS-Asia, 8 MB for RESGEN)
• at least 4 MB of free RAM memory, although 8 MB are highly recommended
• at least 512 KB of free memory in the lower 640 KB
• standard VGA monitor or better
• DOS 5.0 or higher.

For step-by-step information on how to install the software, please refer to the user's manuals (RAINS-Asia page 21, RESGEN page 12). These sections contain also some trouble-shooting hints.

To run RAINS-Asia and RESGEN, please consult the user tutorial sections of the user manuals.  

Important Technical Advice:

DOS-environment:

The current versions of RAINS-Asia and RESGEN are designed to work in a DOS environment. Therefore, if you are running WINDOWS, please exit Windows before installing or running RAINS or RESGEN. Exit WINDOWS by choosing File from the top menu, then choose Exit Windows from the next menu.

Note: WINDOWS 3.11, OS/2, and some desktop programs which run in WINDOWS can place DOS programs in a window. RAINS and RESGEN require a full screen DOS session and cannot run in WINDOWS 3.11. In our present experience, however, RAINS-Asia can be run in a DOS-box in WINDOWS95.

Use of a mouse:

Although you can use the software without a mouse, it is much easier to navigate with a mouse or a pointer device. In order to use a mouse with RAINS and RESGEN, you must make sure that a mouse driver for DOS has been loaded prior to running RAINS or RESGEN.

If you don't have a mouse driver loaded with the DOS session onto your computer, install one using the installation disk that came with your mouse. Note that mouse drivers installed within WINDOWS are deactivated when leaving WINDOWS!

Single-user programs:

The current versions of RAINS-Asia and RESGEN are designed to work as single-user programs. Although you can install them on a local computer network and provide access to more users, there is, at present, no file-sharing control provided. This means that files generated by different users could interfere with one another.

Printing graphics:

In a DOS environment it is not easily possible to provide printer drivers for all possible brands of printers. Therefore, RAINS-Asia produces high-quality graphic output in the standard (Encapsulated) POSTSCRIPT printer language format. POSTSCRIPT output can be directly processed by POSTSCRIPT capable printers, which are available from many producers. Alternatively, POSTSCRIPT files can also be imported into standard graphics software (CORELDRAW5, ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR, etc.) and printed from there or converted into other graphic formats (e.g., PCX). Furthermore, shareware programs are available to print POSTSCRIPT output on any conventional printer (e.g., GHOSTSCRIPT, available on ftp.cs.wisc.edu; for information contact Aladdin Enterprises, Palo Alto, Fax +1-415-322 1734, e-mail ghost@aladdin.com ). Some word processors (e.g., MS-WORD) allow to import POSTSCRIPT graphics, however they can then only be printed on POSTSCRIPT printers.

RESGEN exports graphs in PCX format, which can then be imported into your own word processing (Word Perfect, Word Pro, etc.) or spreadsheet ( Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, Quattro pro, etc.) document. PCX is a standard bitmap format (see page 20 of the RESGEN manual).

Technical Support:

The easiest way to contact us is be sending an e-mail through the Internet.

If you have any problem, please document the problem as well as you can in your e-mail. Please include the following information:

• What computer do you have?
• How much RAM memory do you have?
• Are you running in Windows?
• Which version of the model do you have? Please provide the serial number shown on the labels of the installation diskettes.

Please contact us using the following e-mail address:

For RAINS-Asia:

tapasia@iiasa.ac.at

or by fax:

Transboundary Air Pollution Project/TAPASIA
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Telephone ++43 2236 807 474
Fax ++43 2236 71313

For RESGEN:

resman@rma.com

or by fax:

Resource Management Associates (RMA)
202 State Street # 303
Madison, Wisconsin 53703 USA
Telephone 608 283 2880
Fax 608 283 2881

Frequently Asked Questions:

Problems with installing RAINS-Asia. Error when reading second diskette.

The following remedial actions, individually or combined, helped to overcome the problem:

• Clean your hard disk by running the DOS command chkdsk;
• Remove old temporary files from your hard disk (e.g., files with the extension .tmp);
• For installation of RAINS-Asia, switch off the extended memory in your autoexec.bat and config.sys files temporarily.

Further technical questions:

For RAINS-Asia: tapasia@iiasa.ac.at

For RESGEN: resman@rma.com