mgv@usceast.UUCP (Marco Valtorta) (04/25/89)
It is possible for academic institutions to obtain an unsupported copy of PCE directly from the University of Amsterdam. proWINDOWS is a commercial spin-off of PCE. PCE was developed, mainly at the University of Amsterdam, in the context of ESPRIT Project 1098 (KADS). The University of Amsterdam requires acceptance of an academic software release agreement and payment of a fee. It is possible that the current release of proWINDOWS and the current release of PCE have grown to be different to some extent. Could the people in the know enlighten me in this respect? Also, can the people at Quintus point to applications of PCE outside P1098? (There was a demo from a French group at the Quintus stand at ECAI-88, but no literature was available, if memory serves me right. Also, there were rumors that another Prolog vendor (BIM?) was going to offer a commercial product based on PCE.) I currently have no connection with P1098 and the University of Amsterdam, other than that of a PCE customer who has signed the release agreement and paid the fee but is still waiting for his software. (Anjo, are you listening?) Marco Valtorta usenet: ...!ncrcae!usceast!mgv Department of Computer Science csnet: mgv@cs.scarolina.edu University of South Carolina tel.: (1)(803)777-4641 Columbia, SC 29208 tlx: 805038 USC U.S.A. fax: (1)(803)777-3065 usenet from Europe: ...!mcvax!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!usceast!mgv
anjo@swivax.UUCP (Anjo Anjewierden) (05/02/89)
In article <2822@usceast.UUCP> mgv@usceast.UUCP (Marco Valtorta) writes: >It is possible for academic institutions to obtain an unsupported copy >of PCE directly from the University of Amsterdam. proWINDOWS is >a commercial spin-off of PCE. PCE was developed, mainly at >the University of Amsterdam, in the context of ESPRIT Project 1098 >(KADS). The University of Amsterdam requires acceptance of an >academic software release agreement and payment of a fee. The fee is 250 ECU (European Currency Units). The software is ready and the documentation is expected to be available in less than a month. I will post a message in this newsgroup when we can ship. >It is possible that the current release of proWINDOWS and the current >release of PCE have grown to be different to some extent. Could the people >in the know enlighten me in this respect? True. The documentation and the source code are the ultimate references. Notable changes (extensions...) on our site are: * single process architecture (i.e. *much* faster); * improved graphics and event handling at a finer grain; * constraints as objects (i.e. you declarative specify that a box precisely fits around a text and PCE will keep it whatever you do to either box or text); * automatic type-checking and conversion; * garbage collection of objects no longer referenced; * "extensible objects"; * etc. Quintus has made modifications as well, although not changing the basic concepts as far as I can tell. >Also, there were rumors that another Prolog vendor (BIM?) was >going to offer a commercial product based on PCE. Check with them I would say. (Yes, BIM as the software). It should be noted that we redesigned the interface between PCE and Prolog such that it can be connected to any symbolic programming language. PCE currently runs with Quintus Prolog, BIM Prolog, SWI-Prolog, X-Lisp and CommonLisp. At the moment PCE only runs on Sun workstations. Anjo Anjewierden University of Amsterdam Herengracht 196 1016 BS Amsterdam The Netherlands (anjo@swivax.uucp)