vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) (11/08/88)
A friend of mine is going to teach herself Prolog next semester and wants a good system for the Mac. What would the Net recommend, and how much will it cost? Thanks -- O----------------------------------------------------------------------> | Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large | Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .
casseres@Apple.COM (David Casseres) (11/09/88)
In article <1561@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes: > >A friend of mine is going to teach herself Prolog next semester and >wants a good system for the Mac. What would the Net recommend, and how >much will it cost? I'm using AAIS Prolog, and I like it. I'm no Prolog expert, but it seems to be a righteous Prolog and it is a pretty good Macintosh program. It includes a large repertoire of predefined Mac ROM calls, and also a general mechanism for making any ROM call by using its trap number. It supports both the Edinburgh syntax and an extended syntax called AAIS syntax. It requires a good deal of memory, like a megabyte. Given that, it runs fine with MultiFinder, and with both recent and older System files. The price is right; I forget what it was exactly but it was in the neighbor- hood of $200. David Casseres
schase@pollux.usc.edu (Scott Chase) (11/09/88)
In article <200@internal.Apple.COM> casseres@Apple.COM (David Casseres) writes: >In article <1561@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes: >> >>A friend of mine is going to teach herself Prolog next semester and >>wants a good system for the Mac. What would the Net recommend, and how >>much will it cost? > >I'm using AAIS Prolog, and I like it. I'm no Prolog expert, but it seems to >be a righteous Prolog and it is a pretty good Macintosh program. It includes >a large repertoire of predefined Mac ROM calls, and also a general mechanism >for making any ROM call by using its trap number. > >It supports both the Edinburgh syntax and an extended syntax called AAIS >syntax. > >It requires a good deal of memory, like a megabyte. Given that, it runs >fine with MultiFinder, and with both recent and older System files. > >The price is right; I forget what it was exactly but it was in the neighbor- >hood of $200. > >David Casseres I heartily agree with David. I've been using AAIS Prolog since Feb.1987 and it is pretty powerful for a micro based system. The manual has a decent introduction for getting started using THIS PARTICULAR PACKAGE - other than that, the manual is a reference manual that at times makes UNIX man pages seem like they were written for kindergarteners :-(. Much to their credit, AAIS was shipping a copy of the book "Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence" by Ivan Bratko, an excellent introduction to the language (I prefer it to Clocksin & Mellish). I don't know if they are still doing this. If not, you will have to get your own introduction to the language or buy some other interpreter. The current issue of MacUser lists the price as $150 (the same as when I bought it). You'll probably want to order it directly from them, since I doubt if any computer store will have it in stock, or any mail order house will carry it. AAIS' address is: Advanced AI Systems P.O. Box 39-0360 Mountain View, CA 94039-0360 (415) 961-1121 They were a small enough operation in Feb. '87, that when I called to inquire about the product, I was able to talk to the president/developer, a very personable fellow named Doug Lanam. So you know that the customer service people CAN answer your questions! I've used AAIS Prolog for writing theorem provers (successfully), and for a graphics grammar system, where 1Mb wasn't enough (but that's a problem with Prolog & Prolog applications in general - they can be memory hogs). At the time, I felt it was the best package available for the price, and I still feel so. I'm at the point where I need more power, so I'm moving on to Quintus Prolog (for the Sun), but I'll always come back to AAIS. There are other packages available for the Mac, some as good, most not, but the good ones generally cost more: ExperProlog II (ExperTelligence) - $495 LPA MacProlog (Programming Logic Systems) - $495 (another excellent package) Personal Prolog (Optimized Systems Software) - $64.95 Prolog/m (Chalcedony Software) - $99.95 There are probably some other Mac Prologs available - I got these out of the MacUser reviews. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- STANDARD DISCLAIMER APPLIES. NO, I DO NOT WORK FOR AAIS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Chase schase@pollux.usc.edu iak8sct@oac.ucla.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe) (11/10/88)
In article <13330@oberon.USC.EDU> schase@pollux.usc.edu (Scott Chase) writes: >I've used AAIS Prolog for writing theorem provers (successfully), and for >a graphics grammar system, where 1Mb wasn't enough (but that's a problem with >Prolog & Prolog applications in general - they can be memory hogs). After allowing for the rather larger run-time system, if an application could have been written in C, the Prolog version shouldn't need a lot more memory than the C version. About the worst that can happen to you is manipulating sequences of characters: where list-of-integer/vector-of-byte is 8/1, but that's rarely the bottleneck. I generally run Quintus Prolog on a Sun-3 with "limit datasize 2M". Any time that's not enough it usually means it's time to take the hacks out of my code.
johnson@csli.STANFORD.EDU (Mark Johnson) (11/10/88)
I don't want to be too negative, but in my opinion AAIS prolog incorporates a number of serious design flaws, the most important of which are the "Lisp-style CONS cell lists" (p. 50 of User's Manual) and the ensuing nonstandard behaviour of predicates like "clause". ALS Prolog for the Mac (it appears to be a port of the PC version) is a little better in this regard, and their implementation is substantially faster than AAIS as well. However their user interface leaves something to be desired (eg. to load a predicate definition from a window you must save the file and load the file). Moreover, both implementations are somewhat buggy (ALS in particular), which can be quite annoying - you never know if the problem is in your program or the Prolog implementation. What we really need is a good, solid Prolog implementation of the standard of Allegro CommonLisp for the Mac. I would strongly advise anyone implementing Prolog for the Mac to look long and hard at Allegro CL, especially their interface to the Mac OS. Allegro CL shows that you can implement a solid product for the Mac and sell it at a reasonable price and still make a profit (are you listening, QP?) Mark Johnson Both of these implem
ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe) (11/11/88)
In article <6383@csli.STANFORD.EDU> johnson@csli.UUCP (Mark Johnson) writes: >ALS Prolog for the Mac ... (eg. to load a predicate definition >from a window you must save the file and load the file). That turns out not to be the case. In the versions I tried, you could do consult(user). in the main window, then select the window you want to load from, select the clauses you want, and hit ENTER. Those clauses having been compiled, you select the main window again, then select END-OF-FILE from one of the menus, and you're done. Not as easy as meta-k-p, but not as bad as it looked at first sight. I would have preferred a "Compile Selection" item in one of the menus, but it _is_ doable.
bmay@ibd.BRL.MIL (Robert M. May) (11/30/89)
I'm interested in Prolog environments for the macintosh. I have a description of Advanced A.I. Systems Prolog M-2.0, but I'd like information on other products if any are available (commercial or public domain). Thanks, Bob May bmay@ibd.brl.mil