J-Track's Latest Release (2.5)

The satellites are tracked using a special JAVA Applet named J-Track. J-Track is still under development and more improvements are in the plans. The current version, 2.0b1, has undergone some internal reworks to avoid bugs in the following browsers:
  • Netscape 3.01 (Win95/NT/Mac)
  • Netscape 4.0 (Win95/NT)
  • Internet Explorer 3.01 (Mac)

Each of the above versions have problems handling time. Either they give the wrong GMT time in milliseconds, convert milliseconds to a GMT string wrong, or they just don't work at all. This new version works around these bugs by -

  1. Downloading the GMT time from our server and comparing it to your local system clock.
  2. Using our own date and time functions rather than those that come with JAVA (they only seem to work on some browsers) - thanks Netscape.
  3. Fragmenting perfectly good equations into multiple short equations for Netscape 3.0.1 on the PC
  4. Not converting double to long integers for Internet Explorer 3.01 on the Mac.

JAVA truly is the great equalizing software. It has reduced all computers to mediocrity and buggyness.

Updated January 21, 1999