Ptolemy

Ptolemy (ˈtɒlɪmɪ)
—n
	Latin name Claudius Ptolemaeus. 2nd century ad, Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer. His Geography was the standard geographical textbook until the discoveries of the 15th century. His system of astronomy (see Ptolemaic system), as expounded in the Almagest, remained undisputed until the Copernican system was evolved

Ptolemy   (tŏl'ə-mē)  Pronunciation Key  Greek astronomer and mathematician who based his astronomy on the belief that all heavenly bodies revolved around Earth. Ptolemy's model of the solar system endured until the 16th century when Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the heavenly bodies in the solar system orbited the Sun.

Ptolemy [(tol-uh-mee)]

An ancient Greek astronomer, living in Egypt, who proposed a way of calculating the movements of the planets on the assumption that they, along with the sun and the stars, were embedded in clear spheres that revolved around the Earth. The system of Ptolemy, called the Ptolemaic universe, prevailed in astronomy for nearly fifteen hundred years, until the modern model of the solar system, with the sun at the center and the planets in motion, was developed from the ideas of Copernicus.

Ptolemy definition

A flexible foundation for the specification, simulation, and rapid prototyping of systems. It is an object-oriented framework within which diverse models of computation can co-exist and interact. For example, using Ptolemy a data-flow system can be easily connected to a hardware simulator which in turn may be connected to a discrete-event system. Because of this, Ptolemy can be used to model entire systems. In addition, Ptolemy now has code generation capabilities. From a flow graph description, Ptolemy can generate both C code and DSP assembly code for rapid prototyping. Note that code generation is not yet complete, and is included in the current release for demonstration purposes only.
Version 0.4.1 includes a graphical algorithm layout, code generator and simulator. It requires C++, C and has been ported to Sun-4, MIPS/Ultrix; DSP56001, DSP96002. Ptolemy is an active research project.
(ftp://ptolemy.bekeley.edu/pub/ptolemy/). Mailing list: ptolemy-hackers-request@ohm.berkeley.edu. E-mail: ptolemy@ohm.berkeley.edu.
(1993-04-22)