lofaso@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu (Bernie Lofaso) (11/22/89)
I may have something of general interest to people wanting to do AI on the Amiga. For the past two years I have been working, as part of my master's thesis, on an implementation of OPS5 for the Amiga. OPS5 is an expert system language designed at CMU in the late seventies. Our implementation is a compiled version called OPS5c. That system is completed and we are resolving rights to the software in order to get binaries and appropriate header files freely distributable. The system has the following disadvantages. First, OPS5c is a no-frills language. It may be a bit more cumbersome to program expert systems with OPS5c than with some commercial shells. Second, the system was designed for speed and memory requirements are somewhat high. Fortunately this is true mainly for the compilation step, so if you don't assign temporary files to the ram disk you can compile decent sized programs with 1 meg. of memory. The system requires Aztec C to be usable. Advantages: Mainly speed. The system takes OPS5 source and produces C code which can then be compiled to produce an executable. I know of no expert system shells which are faster (on comparable hardware) and typically observe performance of 10-100 times faster execution compared to Lisp based implementations of the language. The Aztec C requirement is because the run-time library must be linked in and it is in Manx format. The language can interface to arbitrary C code (a big plus over many commercial shells). If bugged sufficiently I'll take the time to add an ARexx interface. The language is 98%+ compatible with the OPS5 language definition. If anyone is interested, send email and I'll inform you if and when the binary distribution becomes available. Hopefully this will occur before Christmas. Bernie Lofaso lofaso@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu
paulz@hpspdra.HP.COM (Paul Zander) (11/23/89)
Can anyone suggest an introductory level AI program? Something easy to learn, but perhaps not very fast or powerful.