Bundy%EDXA@sri-unix.UUCP (10/31/83)
From: Bundy HPS (on ERCC DEC-10) <Bundy@EDXA> Date: 9 Oct 1983 11:43:51-PDT (Sunday) From: Adrian Walker <ADRIAN.IBM@Rand-Relay> Subject: Prolog question IBM Research Laboratory K51 5600 Cottle Road San Jose CA 95193 USA Telephone: 408-256-6999 ARPANet: Adrian.IBM@Rand-Relay 10th October 83 Alan, In answer to your question about Prolog implementations, we do most of our work using the Waterloo Prolog 1.3 interpreter on an IBM mainframe (3081). Although not a traditional AI environment, this turns out to be pretty good. For instance, the speed of the Interpreter turns out to be about the same as that of compiled DEC-10 Prolog (running on a DEC-10). As for environment, the system delivered by Waterloo is pretty much stand alone, but there are several good environments built in Prolog on top of it. A valuable feature of Waterloo Prolog 1.3 is a 'system' predicate, which can call anything on the system, E.g. a full screen editor. The work on extracting explanations of 'yes' and 'no' answers from Prolog, which I reported at IJCAI, was done in Waterloo Prolog. We have also implemented a syllogistic system called SYLLOG, and several expert system types of applications. An English language question answerer written by Antonio Porto and me, produces instantaneous answers, even when the 3081 has 250 users. As far as I know, Waterloo Prolog only runs under the VM operating system (not yet under MVS, the other major IBM OS for mainframes). It is available, for a moderate academic licence fee, from Sandra Ward, Department of Computing Services, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. We use it with IBM 3279 colour terminals, which adds variety to a long day at the screen, and can also be useful ! Best wishes, -- Adrian Walker Walker, A. (1981). 'SYLLOG: A Knowledge Based Data Management System,' Report No. 034. Computer Science Department, New York University, New York. Walker, A. (1982). 'Automatic Generation of Explanations of Results from Knowledge Bases,' RJ3481. Computer Science Department, IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, California. Walker, A. (1983a). 'Data Bases, Expert Systems, and PROLOG,' RJ3870. Computer Science Department, IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, California. (To appear as a book chapter) Walker, A. (1983b). 'Syllog: An Approach to Prolog for Non-Programmers.' RJ3950, IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, Cal1fornia. (To appear as a book chapter) Walker, A. (1983c). 'Prolog/EX1: An Inference Engine which Explains both Yes and No Answers.' RJ3771, IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, Calofornia. (Proc. IJCAI 83) Walker, A. and Porto, A. (1983). 'KBO1, A Knowledge Based Garden Store Assistant.' RJ3928, IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, California. (In Proc Portugal Workshop, 1983.)