freeman@argosy.UUCP (Jay R. Freeman) (07/01/90)
I have written a shareware Scheme implementation for the Apple
Macintosh. Until 1 August 1990, I will be happy to (US) mail a free
copy to anyone who sends me a 3.5-inch 800K disk and a self-addressed
return mailer WITH ENOUGH POSTAGE to get it back to you.
"Free" means that I encourage recipients of disks thus obtained to
ignore the program's built-in appeal for a shareware donation.
Mail to:
Jay Reynolds Freeman
P. O. Box 60628
Palo Alto, CA, 94306-0628
If I should get more requests than I can handle, I will have to
return empty disks. I think that's very unlikely.
For those who don't know, Scheme is a dialect of Lisp. For those
who do know, my implementation is a nearly-complete "R3" Scheme
interpreter, with a few extra features. It should run on a Mac Plus
or on any later Macintosh.
I have no FTP access and subscribe to no commercial on-line
services, so I cannot get my project to the various usual places, and
the distribution seems too large for comp.binaries.mac.
I hope it does not breach netiquette to post this item: Shareware
appears regularly on comp.binaries.<etc>, so I concluded it was OK.
-- Jay Reynolds Freeman
<canonical disclaimer -- all opinions herein are my own>oz@yunexus.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit) (07/06/90)
In article <601@argosy.UUCP> freeman@MasPar.COM (Jay Reynolds Freeman) writes: > > I have written a shareware Scheme implementation for the Apple >Macintosh. You realise of course that there is a *very inexpensive* and very well implemented scheme for Macintosh: Scheme Express or MacScheme Student editions, and the latter comes in a book. Why should anyone be interested in "yet another" implementation ?? What is it that makes your implementation special? [I am not trying to be cynical... I am just curious] oz --- Sometimes when you fill a vacuum, it still sucks. | oz@nexus.yorku.ca Dennis Ritchie | or (416) 736 5257
freeman@argosy.UUCP (Jay R. Freeman) (07/08/90)
In article <12383@yunexus.YorkU.CA> you write: >In article <601@argosy.UUCP> freeman@MasPar.COM (Jay Reynolds Freeman) writes: >> >> I have written a shareware Scheme implementation for the Apple >>Macintosh. > >You realise of course that there is a *very inexpensive* and very well >implemented scheme for Macintosh: Scheme Express or MacScheme Student >editions, and the latter comes in a book. I didn't know LightShip Software (I think that is what they are called now) had released a student edition: I am a registered user of MacScheme/Toolsmith, and I am surprised they haven't mailed me any advertising on it. Perhaps I have moved too often and have fallen off a mailing list. Where is it advertised and how much does it cost? Is "Scheme Express" the same as "MacScheme Student Edition"? > Why should anyone be interested >in "yet another" implementation ?? Well, I don't know if anyone is. I shall have to wait and see. > What is it that makes your implementation >special? [I am not trying to be cynical... I am just curious] I wrote my implementation, "Pixie Scheme", because I like Scheme and wanted one to play with, that I could modify to suit myself. That takes source, and I thought the best way to get source I understood (?) was to write it. So I coded and coded. Part way through, it occured to me that if I got the program into reasonable shape, it might be a useful public service to make it available as shareware, or perhaps to put it in public domain. (The least expensive MacScheme at that time was $125, I think, which might set some folks back a bit.) I decided on shareware because I was curious to see who (if anyone) used it: I thought more people would be willing to send me a dollar (my suggested shareware donation) than a post card or a letter. I will be flabbergasted if I gross more than the price of an occasional cup of coffee from the program. Anyhow, Pixie Scheme is a nearly complete "R3" Scheme. The most notable lacks are: No support for complex numbers, no support for rationals with numerator and denominator stored as separate integers, "mutation" procedures (set-car!, etc.) are not prevented from altering constants, and decimal numeric printing and scanning is only IEEE, not the much tougher standard specified by the R3 report. My implementation is (essentially) interpreted: It is *much* slower than (e. g.) MacScheme's compiled code, possibly excepting programs that make heavy use of the 68881. I may release a compiler some day. What you get on your 800K disk is two versions of the program -- one that runs on a Mac Plus or better, one that requires a 68020-or-better and a 68881-or-better, a couple of saved worlds, a HyperCard stack that describes the implementation, and a few other things. -- Jay Freeman <canonical disclaimer -- I speak only for myself>
oz@yunexus.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit) (07/10/90)
In article <606@argosy.UUCP> freeman@cleo.UUCP (Jay R. Freeman) writes: >I didn't know LightShip Software (I think that is what they are called >now) had released a student edition... It is a part of a package from scientific press. First one is a book: %A Michael Eisenberg %A William Clinger %A Anne Hartheimer %T Programming In MacScheme %E Harold Abelson %I The Scientific Press %C Redwood City, CA %D 1990 The second is a MacScheme (student edition) Manual and Software by scientific press ISBN 0-89426-141-X, (the diskette is inside the back cover of the book) the price is (If I remember correctly) less than $45. >Is "Scheme Express" the same as "MacScheme Student Edition"? As of now, it may be. I do not know for sure. [anybody??] oz --- Sometimes when you fill a vacuum, it still sucks. | oz@nexus.yorku.ca Dennis Ritchie | or (416) 736 5257
winston@fjcnet.GOV (Winston M. Llamas) (07/12/90)
How portable is the Scheme representation (i.e. how difficult will it be to port this Macintosh Scheme interpreter to other 68k based machines)? Winston
mayer@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Niels Mayer) (07/14/90)
So, how does this version of scheme compare to xscheme and elk?? Is it byte compiled?? Does it require any assembly language coding?? Can it support incremental GC?? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Niels Mayer -- hplabs!mayer -- mayer@hplabs.hp.com Human-Computer Interaction Department Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Palo Alto, CA. *