This article is written to help the user understand how to run MYCSUN software. 

MYCSUN software is a Java-based program for simulation of nuclear reactor dynamics. 

For the following, we shall suppose that you have already download and installed it using these instructions:

1) Download the installation package by clicking on the “Download” button, and selecting “File” > “Save as”. 

Your machine should prompt you where to save the file to. For the following, let us suppose that you have saved it to your desktop. 

Make sure that it has a file name of “mycsun-installer.jar”, and that there is no other application on this particular folder.

2) Open up a command line interface (Start > Run… > type in “cmd”) and change the directory to where MYCSUN has been installed:

Wherever you installed MYCSUN, navigate to its installation folder by using its shortcut and right click on the desktop; 

select “Open”. A folder will be displayed with some icons inside it. Go into “bin” and double-click on “startmycsun.exe”.

3) This is where you will need to input your MYCSUN license code. 

This can be gotten from the support center, or by contacting the vendor directly. 

The vendor is also willing to send this code to you via email upon request. 

For the following, we shall suppose that you have gotten it from the support center.

The license code will be a string of letters and numbers separated by periods (e.g., 1MZ6L0T9). This is the license code to be input in this case.

Before starting, make sure that your computer can keep up with the program’s high system requirements.

 Here are the minimum specifications according to MYCSUN:

* Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 processor (or better) – no Power PC processors are supported. 

The company claims that it works well even on older Pentium 4s, 

but there are some cases where the program has bugs which will not show up until you’re running older CPU models. 

Follow their instructions for finding out which CPU types are supported by their software if you need to know more about this issue.

* Windows XP SP3 or newer, Mac OS X 10.5+ (x86-64), Sun Solaris 10 (SPARC) or newer, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (x86-64). 

The program is written in Java, which runs on these operating systems out of the box.

* 512MB RAM (1GB suggested)

* 750MB disk space (1GB recommended)

The company also suggests you to use Oracle’s Java Runtime Environment to run the program. 

For users using Windows Vista and later, this can be downloaded from http://www.java.com/. 

For users on non-Windows platforms, they recommend that you use their own installation CD.

Please note that the file name that your computer shows in the command line is the filename of the program itself, not its shortcut. 

Also remember to use “start” rather than “run”, and it is case sensitive.

 For people using older machines, MYCSUN also recommends using VMX or an emulator which will allow you to run Java programs faster in future. 

The company claims that running in this way will allow better use of RAM and make more efficient use of your computer’s system resources.

4) After inputting the license code, press enter to start up MYCSUN.

5) Type in the name of your reactor. Use your own name

 if you are running this program on your own computer, or make up a name for instructional purposes.

 The program will ask you whether you are inputting an existing reactor or creating a new one. Select “A new reactor” to create a new one.

6) Select the category “Light Water Reactor”. You can then select the type that most closely resembles your own reactor’s type.

 If there is no exact match, you may have to search for something similar and figure out which parameter values 

are similar between them and yours, in order to match the dynamics of your reactor more accurately.

7) Once you have created a reactor, the program will ask you whether you want to create a sample simulation now.

 For those who are not sure how it works yet, they recommend selecting “No”.

 If you are not sure what this is for, they also suggest that if you cannot run a long simulation now, then don’t do it.

8) A new window may pop up asking you to enter MYCSUN license code again.

 If so, go back to the command line interface and type in your license code with the “/” before it. It should run the program without any further issues.

9) The simulation will start running. You will see the program’s “Console” window with a list of commands and their responses.

 For those who need more information on how to navigate around the program, they recommend that you check out this page:mycsun software

10) To stop the simulation, go back to the command line interface and type “stop”.