BFOIT - Introduction to Computer Programming

Appendix G (Installation of TG)

My Experience

If a site or someone would like to use these materials to teach an Introduction to Programming class, you will need need to install TG (the programming environment) on a computer.  I have installed/used TG in a few environments.

BFOIT classes are held in a CS computer lab at UC Berkeley.  When I used these materials at Berkeley's Longfellow Middle School, I used a Sun Microsystems server with thin clients for desktops.

In the CS lab at UC Berkeley, Java is already available on the PCs.  The PCs are running some flavor of Windows.  I have an instructor account where I place my TG.jar file.  The students copy it and start up the application either by double-clicking right on the TG.jar filename in "My Documents" or with a "java -jar TG.jar" command in a CommandPrompt window.

At Longfellow Middle School's Java lab, I had Java on a Sun Microsystems server with 30 Sun Ray thin-clients attached to it. 

I run TG (v.9.26) on an Apple MacBook with no problems. 

You Need Java

If your computers do not have Java on them you can download the standard Java Runtime Environment from Sun's Archive: Java[tm] Technology Products Download website.  After selecting 1.3.1_21 in the menu to the right of J2RE - 1.3, Click on the [Go] box.  Or, select 1.2.2_16/_16 in the menu to the right of J2RE - 1.2, and click on the [Go] box to its right.  I do not know of a version of the Java Runtime Environment that doesn't work, but the older the version the smaller the size of the download.

The runtime environment allows you to work through all of the Logo-based lessons.  If you want to continue on with the introduction to Java lessons, you will need the full Java SDK (Software Development Kit).  I recommend going to Java SE Previous Releases Downloads page.  Follow one of the links (J2SE 5.0 Downloads, J2SE 1.4.2 Downloads, etc...)  I use v1.3.1 and v1.4.2 all the time on Microsoft Windows systems.  I even test it with v1.1.8 occasionally since this is the version that runs on very old systems with a JVM built into the web browser. 

Theoretically, the program is platform independent.  My experience is more like "Write once, debug everywhere."

TG.jar

The easiest way to run the TurtleGraphics application is to simply grab the TG.jar file from the BFOIT website.  It is available at 

    http://www.bfoit.org/itp/TG.jar
I just tested copying this string into Internet Explorer's Address bar and got a bunch of unintelligable junk in the browser window.  I then chose the "Save Page As..." item on the "File" menu and entered "TG.jar" into the "File name:" box in the form that popped up.  After clicking on the [Save] button, I was able to run the saved file.

On an older Microsoft system, when I chose the "Save Page as..." menu item, the following pop-up appeared.

Figure G.1

When I clicked on "Save" I got another pop-up ("Save As") which had a "File name:" field set to just "TG" - you need to append ".jar" to this.  Change the "Save In:" field appropriately for where you want it to go.  Click on "Save" and you should be all set... You should be able to start up the TG application.

Source Code

If you are interested in starting from scratch with the source code, contact me via e-mail.  Years ago I had pointers to the source files here; but, TG now consists of around 70 files.