Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!decwrl!bacchus.pa.dec.com!granite.pa.dec.com!mwm From: mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Common LISP Message-ID: Date: 12 Sep 90 14:56:53 GMT References: <1990Sep6.213628.16491@zip.eecs.umich.edu> <2054@nyx.UUCP> Sender: news@wrl.dec.com (News) Distribution: na Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 39 In-Reply-To: bscott@nyx.UUCP's message of 8 Sep 90 11:53:20 GMT In article <2054@nyx.UUCP> bscott@nyx.UUCP (Ben Scott) writes: The other day I was at a local Amiga store (a very bad, disreputable store; they almost managed to talk me out of an Amiga in the process of selling me one long ago... luckily I found another store) and on a remainder table was a package claiming to be Amiga LISP. It looked like a Commodore package, white with the Amiga checkmark and the font we're used to seeing on things like the Enhancer package. It said it reqired v1.0 Kickstart, one A-1000, and one A-1010 external drive (maybe some other stuff too), and was marked down from about $130 to about $100 (WHAT a deal...). The package (not really a box even) looked too flat to contain many disks much less any great amount of documentation. Anyway, I'd never heard of Commodore producing a LISP for the Amiga before. Not that I'm excessively interested in LISP, but it was kinda odd to see. Can anyone tell me much about this? That's the MetaComCo LISP. It's a variant of Cambridge LISP. It's the best (only) commercial LISP for the Amiga that you can get in the US. I think it's a better _system_ than the PD LISPs, but the LISP per se isn't very good. It's based on an old, little-used (in the US) dialect of LISP, that's been stripped down for the Amiga. It was available at launch, or shortly thereafter. Last time I checked, MetaComCo had shut down there US offices, and had never offered an upgrade to that LISP. It has the "move ea,cc" buglet, and so needs a patch installed before it will run on anything faster than a 68010. If you want to play with LISP, you're better off getting one of the PD offerings. If you want a system with compiler, etc - offer them $20 for it. That's about all it's worth.