me@cns.umist.ac.uk (Martin Earl) (04/24/91)
Apologies is this is a FAQ but I'm new to this group. I'm getting a bit confused about different types of lisp and their availability, particularly the common lisp variants. Please correct me if my beliefs are incorrect and educate me on the gaps. KCL is Kyoto common lisp and is PD/generally available? AKCL is KCL with extras from Austin ? What's the availability on this one? Purchase? Ftp from somewhere? or what? Lucid seems to be tied up with Sun Micro in some way which I don't quite understand. Is Lucid a variant of common lisp of which sun do a version for suns or is lucid Sun's version of common lisp? If the former, where can one get other versions of Lucid from? Then there's also a common lisp from Franz (Allegro?) and ... and... The hardware I have is Sun3 and Sun4 and OS version 4.1 and 4.1.1 at the moment. Any pointers/info gratefully received. Thanks in advance, Martin --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin Earl, martin@uk.ac.umist.ccl Centre for Computational Linguistics, ..!mcsun!ukc!uk.ac.umist.ccl!martin UMIST, Manchester M60 1QD, UK Tel: +44 61 200 3111
barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (04/25/91)
In article <1991Apr24.123457.24123@cns.umist.ac.uk> me@cns.umist.ac.uk (Martin Earl) writes: >Apologies is this is a FAQ but I'm new to this group. I plan on including some answers to this in the FAQ list I'm writing. >KCL is Kyoto common lisp and is PD/generally available? Right. >AKCL is KCL with extras from Austin ? What's the availability on this >one? Purchase? Ftp from somewhere? or what? I think AKCL is free. There's also Ibuki Common Lisp, which I think is a commercial derivative of KCL (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). >Lucid seems to be tied up with Sun Micro in some way which I don't quite >understand. Is Lucid a variant of common lisp of which sun do a version >for suns or is lucid Sun's version of common lisp? If the former, where >can one get other versions of Lucid from? Lucid Common Lisp exists for many different systems. Lucid doesn't sell Lisp for Suns directly; instead, Sun distributes Lucid CL with the name Sun Common Lisp. >Then there's also a common lisp from Franz (Allegro?) and ... and... Franz also distributes Allegro Common Lisp for many systems, including Suns. >The hardware I have is Sun3 and Sun4 and OS version 4.1 and 4.1.1 at the >moment. Any pointers/info gratefully received. >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Martin Earl, martin@uk.ac.umist.ccl >Centre for Computational Linguistics, ..!mcsun!ukc!uk.ac.umist.ccl!martin >UMIST, Manchester M60 1QD, UK Tel: +44 61 200 3111 Since you're in the UK, there's also a British Common Lisp vendor named Procyon. I don't know whether they have a Sun version, though. -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
simon@liasun2.epfl.ch (Simon Leinen) (04/25/91)
Some additions to Barry Margolin's response to Martin Earl's question: * KCL is free, but you have to sign a license agreement and send it to Japan before you may use it. You can FTP the license form from Rascal.ICS.UTexas.EDU, file /pub/kcl.broadcast. There are also compressed tar files for KCL and AKCL. Make sure you get the latest version of AKCL (akcl-1-530.tar.Z as of this morning). * The remarks on AKCL and IBCL are correct. Personally, I have been using AKCL for some time and found it quite usable. It runs on all Suns you have, and many more architectures because the compiler generates C code. This also means that the compiler is somewhat slow to `native' CL compilers. * The main contenders for the Common Lisp market on Suns *seem* to be Franz (Allegro CL) and Lucid (Sun CL). I have used them extensively and are VERY VERY pleased with both. My personal impression is that the environment is a bit better in Allegro, while Lucid's compiler is better, especially if you use local functions (FLET, LABELS etc.) Both are pretty much compatible with the non-standard of CLtL II. Both have (completely independent) graphical UIs, but I don't know if they're standard parts of the products. * There is a Common Lisp vendor in the UK (I think Cambridge or Bath) named Harlequin. They sell a CL called ``LispWorks'' that includes a ``native'' CLOS (i.e. they claim it's not derived from PCL, although I think they use Gregor's walker) and a *fancy* user interface based on CLUE. If you have fast machines, you will probably enjoy it. Ask Harlequin if they give you a demo version, which they did in the past. I can positively say that LispWorks runs on Sun-3s and Sparcs. * I think there is also an italian company called Delphi who sell a Common Lisp. * Someone will port the new version of CMU CL to SunOS. Currently it runs on Sparcs and PMAXen, but only under Mach. I expect very much from the resulting system, because its compiler (``Python'' by Rob McLachlan) is very sophisticated. This will be freely distributable, I think. -- Simon.
pierson@encore.com (Dan L. Pierson) (04/25/91)
Regarding Re: Flavours of Lisp; barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) adds: > In article <1991Apr24.123457.24123@cns.umist.ac.uk> me@cns.umist.ac.uk (Martin Earl) writes: >>KCL is Kyoto common lisp and is PD/generally available? > Right. >>AKCL is KCL with extras from Austin ? What's the availability on this >>one? Purchase? Ftp from somewhere? or what? > I think AKCL is free. There's also Ibuki Common Lisp, which I think is a > commercial derivative of KCL (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Both KCL and AKCL are available for anonymous ftp from rascal.ics.utexas.edu. KCL is controlled by a free license; you are required to sign a copy of this and put it in the mail before you ftp the sources (yes, this is an honor system; the license is also available for ftp, probably in the README file). The only annoying clause in the license is one that prohibits you from distributing modified versions of KCL; among other things, this means you can't distributed bug-fixed binaries to your customers (but see below). AKCL is free and built on top of the public KCL sources. You get both, then the AKCL makefile applies a bunch of patches (in its own format) to copies of the KCL sources and builds AKCL. This circumvents the license restriction. AKCL has many more features than KCL, and comes with working (?) ports for many more machines. IBCL (Ibuki Common Lisp) is a commercial product based on the original KCL. The current version has roughly the same external features but significantly different internals. The main thrust of IBCL is *much* tighter integration with the C world. Ibuki seems to be ahead of everyone else in such areas as making the entire Lisp runtime a Unix shared library. -- dan In real life: Dan Pierson, Encore Computer Corporation, Research UUCP: {talcott,linus,necis,decvax}!encore!pierson Internet: pierson@encore.com
scott@coyote.trw.com (Scott Simpson) (04/26/91)
In article <1991Apr24.123457.24123@cns.umist.ac.uk> me@cns.umist.ac.uk (Martin Earl) writes: >Apologies is this is a FAQ but I'm new to this group. No problem. >I'm getting a bit confused about different types of lisp and their >availability, particularly the common lisp variants. Please correct me >if my beliefs are incorrect and educate me on the gaps. OK. >KCL is Kyoto common lisp and is PD/generally available? Yes. It converts lisp to C so it is somewhat slow. >AKCL is KCL with extras from Austin ? What's the availability on this >one? Purchase? Ftp from somewhere? or what? I believe that is where the name came from. You can ftp it free from rascal.ics.utexas.edu. I just checked. This is from the README in ~ftp/pub: akcl-xx.tar.Z is Austin Kyoto Common Lisp, which contains Bill Schelter's improvments to Kyoto Common Lisp. (xx is a version number). It requires kcl.tar, which requires a license. It includes a convenient change mechanism by which you can distribute changes for KCL (or other systems). Currently the version of Macsyma running in KCL uses some of these changes. There is no license required to take or use this file, though there is a copyright on merge.c (see the head of the file). >Lucid seems to be tied up with Sun Micro in some way which I don't quite >understand. Is Lucid a variant of common lisp of which sun do a version >for suns or is lucid Sun's version of common lisp? If the former, where >can one get other versions of Lucid from? Sun Microsystems markets Lucid Common Lisp under the Sun name ``Sun Common Lisp''. >Then there's also a common lisp from Franz (Allegro?) and ... and... Franz is another vendor that makes a Common Lisp. They call their Common Lisp ``Allegro Common Lisp''. It used to come for free on the NeXT machine. I don't think it does any more. >The hardware I have is Sun3 and Sun4 and OS version 4.1 and 4.1.1 at the >moment. Any pointers/info gratefully received. You forgot one more Common Lisp vendor (and this one may be the one you are most interested in because you are in the UK), Harlequin. Here is the info I have on all three: Harlequin Limited Barrington Hall Barrington Cambridge CB2 5RG Phone 0223 872522 (or 44223 872522 outside UK) Fax 0223 872519 Telex 818440 harlqn g ai@uk.co.harlqn (or ai@harlqn.co.uk for US people) Franz, Inc. 1995 University Ave. Berkeley, CA 94704 Phone +1 415 548 3600 Fax +1 415 548 8253 Telex 340179 WUPUBTLXSFO bugs@franz.com (don't know any other aliases) Lucid. See your local friendly Sun Microsystems rep. customer-support@lucid.com We are evaluating all three and we currently have Lucid and Harlequin. We want to get Franz too though. I just got Harlequin up today and it looks like it has a nice Emacs like editor, browser for classes and such, inspector debugger and window interface all using CLUE under X. I believe Sun's Symbolic Programming Environment (SPE) is similar but we don't have a copy so I can't say for sure. I can't comment on Franz yet because we don't have a copy but I'm sure they put out fine stuff like this too. >Thanks in advance, You're welcome. >Martin Scott >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Martin Earl, martin@uk.ac.umist.ccl >Centre for Computational Linguistics, ..!mcsun!ukc!uk.ac.umist.ccl!martin >UMIST, Manchester M60 1QD, UK Tel: +44 61 200 3111 TRW, Sunny Southern California, USA. -- Scott Simpson TRW scott@coyote.trw.com
aarons@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Aaron Sloman) (04/26/91)
An addition to Simon Leinen's additions to Barry Margolin's response to Martin Earl's question: * There is another UK Lisp provided as part of Poplog. Poplog is a commercial product developed at Sussex University and marketed by Integral Solutions Ltd worldwide and Computational Functions Inc in the USA and Canada. Both give massive educational discounts, and UK academics get special low prices direct from Sussex University. Poplog Common Lisp conforms to CLTL first edition and is one of four incrementally compiled languages included in Poplog, the others being Prolog, Standard ML and Pop-11. (You don't have to have them all loaded when you run Poplog. E.g. Poplog Lisp starts up needing less than 2 MBytes). A version of CLOS (PCL) is included in the "contrib" directory. Version 14 runs on Sun3&4 under SunOS >= 4.1 and includes a general interface to X11R4 allowing widget sets to be dynamically linked in as required on Suns, though there are problems with this on DECStations. Enquiries: In usa & canada pop@cs.umass.edu UK academics alim@cogs.sussex.ac.uk All others isl@integ.uucp Aaron Sloman, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, Univ of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, England EMAIL aarons@cogs.sussex.ac.uk or: aarons%uk.ac.sussex.cogs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk UUCP: ...mcvax!ukc!cogs!aarons or aarons@cogs.uucp
welch@sacral.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arun Welch) (04/27/91)
People keep seem to be forgetting my (obviously biased) favorite, Medley, available from Venue. I don't remember if anyone's mentioned Ibuki or Delphi either. ...arun Info-1100-request@cis.ohio-state.edu
wjb@tantalum.eds.com (Bill Biesty) (04/30/91)
In article <281747A1.43EB@deneva.sdd.trw.com> scott@coyote.trw.com (Scott Simpson) writes: ->In article <1991Apr24.123457.24123@cns.umist.ac.uk> me@cns.umist.ac.uk (Martin Earl) writes: -> ->>Then there's also a common lisp from Franz (Allegro?) and ... and... -> ->Franz is another vendor that makes a Common Lisp. They call their ->Common Lisp ``Allegro Common Lisp''. It used to come for free on the ->NeXT machine. I don't think it does any more. Nope. I recently checked with them. It sells for $1800, though if you're a student (fuzzy definition) you can get it for $900. From talking to the sales rep. this price is less than half of what it costs on the the Sun Sparc platform ($4000). But 3-4 times the cost on a Mac (Finder, from APDA, $495). (All prices approximate.) Bill
mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) (05/01/91)
In article <1991Apr29.175539.23275@edsr.eds.com> wjb@tantalum.eds.com (Bill Biesty) writes: >Nope. I recently checked with them. It sells for $1800, though if you're a >student (fuzzy definition) you can get it for $900. From talking to the sales >rep. this price is less than half of what it costs on the the Sun Sparc >platform ($4000). But 3-4 times the cost on a Mac (Finder, from APDA, $495). >(All prices approximate.) The Lisp from Apple is not a Franz product. The similarity in name was due to a marketing arrangement between Franz and Coral, the company that originally developed the Macintosh product. Apple bought Coral, acquiring the rights to the product, along with several of the programmers who developed it. The product is now known as Macintosh Common Lisp, and version 2.0 is presently in Beta test.