Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uwmcsd1!nic.MR.NET!shamash!nis!com50!pai!erc
From: erc@pai.UUCP (Eric Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: Status of XScheme
Summary: XScheme still not finished, I believe, but at ver. 0.7
Message-ID: <195@pai.UUCP>
Date: 22 Sep 88 14:36:03 GMT
References: <8809212055.AA03387@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu>
Organization: Prime Automation, Inc., Burnsville, MN
Lines: 56

In article <8809212055.AA03387@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu>, wilson@UICBERT.EECS.UIC.EDU (Paul Wilson) writes:
> A while back I heard something about Dave Betz doing a Scheme.
> They called it XScheme 0.3.  Does anybody know what the status
> of this project is, or any details about the actual code?
> (Is it portable? What machines does it run on?, etc.)
> 
> Paul R. Wilson                         
> Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory
> U. of Illin. at C. EECS Dept. (M/C 154)   wilson%uicbert@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
> Box 4348   Chicago,IL 60680 

I am not the best expert on this, so correct me if I am wrong...

XScheme is a C-language implementation of scheme written by David Betz,
who also wrote XLisp, a C-language implementation of Lisp (with some
object-oriented extensions).  Like XLisp, XScheme is written in very
portable C, with versions available for IBM PCs, Macs, Amigas and Atari STs.
XScheme is an interpreter, but I thought Betz was working on something
related to incremental compilation (it sounded neat anyway).

The last version I saw was version 0.7 for the Mac.  This was about
two months ago. I asked David Betz about posting XLisp to Usenet, he said
no problem and that he thought it would be fun to post XScheme too,
but not until he finished with XScheme.  I was preempted on posting
XLisp (by Josh Hodas, I believe), so I haven't pursued it further.

The latest version of both XScheme and XLisp should be available
in the listings section of BIX, the Byte (magazine) Information eXchange,
a somewhat costly BBS system like CompuServe and GEnie.  The postings
usually come in five packages:
* C Source for the common routines, in a PC-DOS .ARC file
* PC executable with PC-specific source files in a PC-DOS .ARC file
* Mac executable with Mac-specific source files in a Mac Stuffit file
* Atari executable,... in an Atari archived format (I'm not familiar with this)
* Amiga executable,... in an Amiga archived format (I'm not familiar with this)

Using XLisp as an example, I needed the Mac version, so I downloaded
the Mac executable, and the PC-DOS full source archive.  Together, I then
have the Mac-specific sources and the common sources so I can compile
the package on my own. I also have the Mac executable (so I didn't
have to get the sources).

Last I looked, XScheme was packaged the same way on BIX. (I do NOT have the
XScheme sources.)


Hope this gives you some of the information you wanted.

-Eric


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