Until recently the PC Windows/NT version of Poplog was available only as
a gzipped tar file. Several people had problems with this, so I've tried
the experiment of unpacking it and putting it in a zip file, and I have
now been told by a PC user (which I am not) that this works.
All versions of Poplog, along with various extensions, toolkits,
AI teaching materials, etc. are accessible via this overview file
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/freepoplog.html
or
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/freepoplog.html
The licence for Poplog, including sources, is modelled on XFree86
licence (by courtesy of Sussex University and ISL).
The newly packaged zip file version of poplog for windows/NT is
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/new/pcwin15.5.zip
or, using FTP:
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/new/pcwin15.5.zip
The size is about 12.3 Mbytes, excluding core system sources, but
including a lot of documentation and libraries, including sources for
the poplog incremental compilers for prolog, common lisp and ML.
Note that this PC version does not include support for graphics, unlike
the unix/linux/solaris versions. It is also an older version: V15.50,
unlike the current V15.53 for other platforms.
But I believe it is still usable for serious work, teaching etc., using
Pop-11, Prolog, Lisp or ML. The non-graphical parts of the sim_agent
toolkit should work on PCwin poplog, for instance, though I have not
tried that.
The above zip file does not include full system sources, which are
accessible in this file
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/new/pcwnt-sources.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/new/pcwnt-sources.tar.gz
These are V15.53 sources, tarred from the full multi-platform source
tree
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/src/master/
which includes everything except binaries and saved images, and
therefore overlaps with the above .zip file.
Note that you need a running poplog system to build a system from the
sources, as most of the core system is written in pop-11. Further
information about porting and rebuilding can be found here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/sysdoc/
If anyone finds a way to add graphical facilities to the PC/Win/NT
version of poplog, please consider donating your work to the free
poplog site.
Further information is at
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/poplog.info.html
and a primer of Pop-11, the core poplog language used to implement all
the incremental compilers is here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/primer/
Questions to comp.lang.pop please.
Thanks.
Aaron
===
Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/ )
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
EMAIL A.Sloman AT cs.bham.ac.uk (········@please !)
PAPERS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/
TOOLS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/freepoplog.html
On 6 Aug 2000 13:21:26 GMT, "Aaron Sloman see text for reply"
<···············@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>Until recently the PC Windows/NT version of Poplog was available only as
>a gzipped tar file. Several people had problems with this, so I've tried
(snip)
>
>The newly packaged zip file version of poplog for windows/NT is
> http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/new/pcwin15.5.zip
>
>or, using FTP:
> ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/new/pcwin15.5.zip
The following is quite long, but I describe a problem for dial-up
users and propose a couple of possible solutions.
I've tried twice to download the file through a modem. The first time,
the connection failed after twenty minutes, the second after I'd
downloaded about 11 Mb (more than 90%) and about 40 minutes.
After the second failure, I tried to resume the ftp download (I
was using software which knew how to do this) but was unable
to connect to the ftp server (other Internet activity worked ok, so
the problem was probably at the server).
Phone calls cost money, so I won't try again until the weekend
(cheapest phone rates), but I'm not entirely optimistic.
As relevant background information, I've successfully downloaded
a 90Mb service pack from the Microsoft web-site. It took
six and three quarter hours, so large downloads are not
impossible. The service pack was split into 9 pieces,
one executable and 8 zip files, each about 10.5Mb (so,
overall, it must have been around 94Mb).
This prompts a few of thoughts:
* It would be a lot easier to download the zip file (through
a modem) if it could be split into 2 or 3 smaller pieces. Are
there any directory sub-trees of around 4Mb?
* This is only an issue for home users and small businesses.
Universities and medium/large businesses probably have
permanent connections.
* Within a year or so, a lot of people will have ADSL
connections. With ADSL, the download time for a 12Mb
file would likely be less than 5 minutes, and it wouldn't
matter anyway, because it provides a permanent
internet connection.
* If an attempt to download the file in one go on Saturday
fails *for any reason* I will give up and wait until I get an
ADSL connection.
* Unless someone can burn a CD for me?
If I ever do download a copy, I am willing to burn and
post CD's with the poplog installation both zipped and
expanded. At cost. Mail me if you are interested, and
I will figure out the price. (I don't buy blank CDs, Jiffy
bags etc. in bulk, and I'd have to check on the
postage costs. My guess is that I would ask
around 3 pounds sterling. Which is comparable to
what I've already spent on phone costs!
[I would also accept payments in Norwegian Kroner, since
I accidentally still have a Norwegian bank account :-).
US dollars might be possible, too.
There are methods for sending small amounts of money.
Otherwise you'd have to send me a blank CD, and
a stamped, addressed something to post it back to you.
But don't do that without checking with me first.
]
If anyone else already sends out Poplog CDs at cost,
or at a low price, I withdraw my offer. (And who are they?)
Jonathan
--
Jonathan L Cunningham