[comp.sys.sequent] KCL-p ? On Sequent Symmetry of Course!

haque@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Samudra E. Haque) (09/06/88)

Hello,
	Our department recently got a Sequent Symmetry which we are
using to replace our aging Vax (4.3 BSD) and a Data General (System
V/BSD 4.2). The machine works great and we are currently in the
process of porting our software base to the new machine.

HOWEVER.. wither a port for KCL, Kyoto Common Lisp?  This is a package
that is a very nice implementation of the Common Lisp language, and is
labelled to be very portable code. Developed at Kyoto University a
couple of years ago, it runs on a large  number of machines from
mini's to mainframes.. I believe the authors name(s) are Taiichi Yuasa
and Masami Hagiya.

We used to run it on our older machines, and some of our clientele use
it quite heavily. 

The KCL code as gotten from  rascal.cs.utexas.edu has support for a
SEQUENT, but as  I understand it - it's for a BALANCE. Things tend to
break with amazing frequency if I define Sequent in the make files.

I'd be really interested if anybody has some ideas on porting
considerations (i.e. pitfalls in word size/memory addressing..) 
and the wytek/80387 math co-processors or have heard of attempts to get 
KCL up on a Sequent >>>.SYMMETRY.<<<<

In the event of KCL not being able to be ported (a large amount of
machine specific code..) how good is the common lisp from Sequent?
Any problems with using that?


---------
Thanks very much for your time!

-- 
Samudra E. Haque
Computer Science Laboratories, Computer Science Department
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
(1)-(612)-625-0876 || haque@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu || haque@umn-cs.UUCP