From: G.Filippi
                                                        Date: 23 Oct 1997


          VLT COMMON SOFTWARE "NOV97" - OVERVIEW
          ======================================

The NOV97 release is meant to consolidate the VLT common software 
and to update the development platform to newer Operating System:
   - HP-UX 10.20 to allow 64 bit CPUs, 
   - TORNADO to allow new LCU CPUs (standard boards not yet defined)
The late availability of RTAP 7 (Oct97 for HP, not yet for Solaris 2.6)
did not allow an update of such product.

NOV97 is the reference baseline that will be used in Paranal for the First 
Light and Commissioning of Unit Telescope 1.

The next release will be a Maintenance release in 98 (May/June 98)
SPRs will only be accepted for 98 normally when they are bugs reported
by Paranal. Workarounds will be suggested for all other cases.

A Major release involving change in supported platform and new features
will be done in 99.


In addition to generic maintenance on all products, according to reported SPRs,
the new features of the VLT Common Software May97 release are:


Supported Platforms
--------------------
VLT Common Software NOV97 release is supported on the following configurations:

               O.S.        TORNADO(*)     RTAP
   CCS      HP-UX 10.20     1.0.1         6.7
   CCS      Sun    5.4      1.0.1         6.6

   CCSlite  HP-UX 10.20     1.0.1          
   CCSlite  Sun    5.5.1    1.0.1         

   NOCCS    HP-UX 10.20         
   NOCCS    Sun    5.5.1        


(*) TORNADO 1.0.1 is VxWorks 5.3 plus Cross-development tools.


In addition, concerning the common development tools:

  - GNU tools are the same as MAY97

  - TcltTk tools are the same as for MAY97 with some updated patches. 

  - MIDAS is 97NOVpl1.0


CCS software
-------------

HOS 
----

INS common software 
--------------------

CCD software
-------------

TCS interfaces
---------------

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