Setting up the development tools

BlackBox
Download and install BlackBox component builder v1.6 from OberonMicrosystems (http://www.oberon.ch).

OberonMicrosystems have kindly made some tools for developing ELF format shared object files available under the Sleepy Cat Open Source licence (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/sleepycat.php).

Install OpenBUGS in some directory different from where you have installed BlackBox. If you have installed BlackBox in a directory in program files it will be convenient to install OpenBUGS in a directory in program files (say c:/Program Files/OpenBUGS). Next edit the short cut to BlackBox so that its target contains /USE "c:/Program Files/OpenBUGS" after the text BlackBox.exe. Note the use of forward slashes as separators in file paths. On some installations, it has been reported that backslashes are required instead, as in /USE "c:\Program Files\OpenBUGS"

Next double click on the BlackBox icon on the desk top to start BlackBox.

The BlackBox directory will also contain a functioning version of the OpenBUGS software and is a useful place to develope and test new software. If you do not want to do this just un-install BlackBox by clicking on the un-install icon.

The end user version of OpenBUGS for Windows contains a simplified trap handler. This trap handler is in file Bugs/Code/Traphandler.ocf. If you pefer to use Oberonmicrosystems extremely powerful trap handler just rename the Traphandler.odc file.


TAUCS library
Ahe OpenBUGS can make use of the TAUCS sparse matrix library (http://www.tau.ac.il/~stoledo/taucs). A Windows version of this library, libtaucs.dll, is distributed with OpenBUGS. This library is used in a sampling algorithm for Gaussian Markov Random Field (GMRF). Without TAUCS the sampling algorithm for GMRF will be much slower for high dimension problems. If you do not want OpenBUGS to use the TAUCS library just remove libtaucs.dll from the OpenBUGS directory. The library version of OpenBUGS does not use the TAUCS library

We do not have Linux or C so we can not produce a Linux version of the TAUCS library. However the library is Open Source and can be downloaded from the web as source code. If you obtain a version of the TAUCS library in ELF format and you wish to use TAUCS to do sparse matrix algebra in the brugs.so library add the name MathTaucsImp to the list of modules linked just after MathSparsematrix.