From: Stig Hemmer
Subject: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <ekvu2qe6333.fsf@epoksy.pvv.ntnu.no>
We just found an olde diskette laying around the computer room saying
"Amiga Lisp (C) 1985 Commodore-Amiga Inc."  No version number.

This turned out to be a port of Cambridge Lisp from Trenchstar Ltd.(?)

It is ... odd.

It uses SETQ to set variables, DF to define functions, but behind the
scenes DF really sets the variable to a LAMBDA value.  There is a DE,
which presumably defines old-style macros(EXPRs).

There is no function called +, but one called PLUS.  Ditto - and
MINUS.  But... MINUS doesn't subtract, it negates its first argument
and discards the rest.  Urgh!   In other words:

(- A B)   =>   (PLUS A (MINUS B))

To quote non-alphanum characters in symbols it uses !!

It is dynamically scoped.

Does anybody know where one can find some documentation for this
beast?  Or any similarish beast?

Stig Hemmer,
Jack of a Few Trades.

PS: This isn't important, I'm just feeling nostalgic today.  :-)
PPS: I found one web page describing this lisp, amoung others.
    Its advise:  Avoid it.

From: Paul Meurer
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <37a9522c.517410486@nntp.uib.no>
On 05 Aug 1999 10:31:28 +0200, Stig Hemmer <····@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:

>
>Does anybody know where one can find some documentation for this
>beast?  Or any similarish beast?
>

A similar beast: Yes. Cambridge Lisp on the Atari ST. It was the first
Lisp i got in contact with, and, alas, it was better than nothing. But
a nightmare to use.
I don't remember having thrown the documentation away, but it would
mean a major effort to dig it up.

Could you point me to the web site you mention?

Hilsen, Paul

____________________________________________
Paul Meurer at HIT UiB no                                   
Humanities Information Technologies Centre,
University of Bergen
All�gaten 27, 5007 Bergen
Norway
From: Stig Hemmer
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <ekvr9li5sx7.fsf@epoksy.pvv.ntnu.no>
Stig Hemmer wrote:
>>PPS: I found one web page describing this lisp, amoung others.

···········@hit.uib.no (Paul Meurer) writes:
> Could you point me to the web site you mention?

http://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/micro/amiga/lisp/LISP.LIST

This is a list of _AMIGA_ Lisps.

Stig Hemmer,
Jack of a Few Trades.
From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <joswig-0508991044210001@pbg3.lavielle.com>
In article <···············@epoksy.pvv.ntnu.no>, Stig Hemmer <····@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:

> This turned out to be a port of Cambridge Lisp from Trenchstar Ltd.(?)

Hmm, wasn't this a dialect of Standard Lisp?
I think I have seen it on Atari years ago...

> It is dynamically scoped.

If we are talking about the same and it has a 68k-compiler,
the compiled code might have different scoping -> lexical.

> Does anybody know where one can find some documentation for this
> beast?  Or any similarish beast?

If it is really Standard Lisp, you'd need to look up
the doc - it's on the net.
From: Stig Hemmer
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <ekvoggm5sfk.fsf@epoksy.pvv.ntnu.no>
······@lavielle.com (Rainer Joswig) writes:
> If it is really Standard Lisp, you'd need to look up
> the doc - it's on the net.

Ah yes, that seems to be it.  If anybody else is interested, do a web
search on "Standard Lisp Report".

Thank you.

Stig Hemmer,
Jack of a Few Trades.
From: Martin Rodgers
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <MPG.1213a9c7d1635b8c989fbb@news.demon.co.uk>
In article <·······················@pbg3.lavielle.com>, 
······@lavielle.com says...

> Hmm, wasn't this a dialect of Standard Lisp?

Correct.

> I think I have seen it on Atari years ago...
 
I know I saw it, as it was the first Lisp I used with a native code 
compiler. It could dynamically load and unload compiled code. It had a 
full interface to GEM, so writing graphical apps was very simple even 
if it was a little crude. No OOP system, so no UI framework.

I'm sure that the only reason I was disappointed with it, 11 years 
ago, was because I was comparing it to Common Lisp. ;) ISTR 
customising it a little to make it more CL-like. Perhaps if I'd been 
happier with it and used it more, I might've delayed switching to a 
386 machine until I'd heard about Linux. Hindsight, eh?
-- 
Remove insect from address | You can never browse enough
will write code that writes code that writes code for food
From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <joswig-0508991620020001@pbg3.lavielle.com>
In article <··························@news.demon.co.uk>, ···@wildcard.butterfly.demon.co.uk (Martin Rodgers) wrote:

> > I think I have seen it on Atari years ago...
>  
> I know I saw it, as it was the first Lisp I used with a native code 
> compiler. It could dynamically load and unload compiled code. It had a 
> full interface to GEM, so writing graphical apps was very simple even 
> if it was a little crude.

It was crashing a lot, wasn't it?
From: Martin Rodgers
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <MPG.1213f2e06c9458d8989fbe@news.demon.co.uk>
In article <·······················@pbg3.lavielle.com>, 
······@lavielle.com says...

> It was crashing a lot, wasn't it?
 
I don't remember Cambridge Lisp crashing, but I may have forgotten. 
It's been about 10 years since I last used an Atari ST.
-- 
Remove insect from address | You can never browse enough
will write code that writes code that writes code for food
From: Bruno Haible
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <7onjp7$fpr$1@news.u-bordeaux.fr>
Rainer Joswig <······@lavielle.com> wrote about Cambridge Lisp on Atari ST:
>
> It was crashing a lot, wasn't it?

IIRC, it had the following function call convention: Every argument is passed
in a register, 6 registers total, hence functions could have at most 6
arguments. When you called a function with fewer arguments than it expected,
it simply used the value that was left over in the register. I.e., no
argument count checking was ever done, not at runtime, neither at compile time.

This might be a reason why you perceived it as "crashing a lot".

                       Bruno
From: Tim Bradshaw
Subject: Re: Amiga Lisp?  Amiga ... Lisp?
Date: 
Message-ID: <ey34siel6jv.fsf@lostwithiel.tfeb.org>
* Stig Hemmer wrote:
[Cambridge Lisp]
> Does anybody know where one can find some documentation for this
> beast?  Or any similarish beast?

This was the first Lisp I used, though on a minicomputer.  It's kind
of related to Standard Lisp. It isn't actually Standard Lisp, but
there was a standard lisp compatibility package that could live on top
of it, making something called PSL -- Portable Standard Lisp.  I
always rather liked it in a strange sort of way.  

Reduce lived on top of it -- I think using *another* standard lisp
compatibility package, perhaps called RSL, though it might have used
the PSL stuff.  We used Reduce, and another algebra package called
SHEEP, which was a descendent of LAM, Lisp Algebraic Manipulation,
which once ran on the Atlas.

Unfortunately I think I threw away the manual, not that long ago.  You
don't have to tell me how stupid this was!

--tim