Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!unido!uklirb!shell
From: decwrl!well.sf.ca.us!well!jjacobs@uunet.uu.net (Jeffrey Jacobs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.shells
Subject: Re: Experience with Intellicorps ProKappa
Message-ID: <7464@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de>
Date: 13 Jan 91 02:35:27 GMT
References: <7440@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de>
Sender: shell@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
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Approved: shell@informatik.uni-kl.de
Posted-Date: Wed Jan 16 08:07:13 GMT 1991

I attended a demo/seminar this week.

Pro-Kappa and Kappa-PC are "two completely separate products".  (I believe
the latter was "purchased").  Effectively no compatibility.

The seminar primarily concentrated on Pro-Kappa (PK). PK is KEE redone in
C and with "seldom used features removed", e.g. truth maintentance and
worlds.  There is a new language for OO and rules called PRO-TALK. 
Fundamentally
English type syntax, although they've include PROLOG list processing
syntax as an "option".

The product is embeddable and exportable, with run-times to be available
RSN for a variety of systems.  Currently SQL support for ORACLE is (almost?)
available).  It also includes an interpreted C development environment,
from Sabre-C.

PK is modular, so you can include delete subsystems as you like.  PRO-TALK
compiles to "C .o" files.

I was not terribly impressed by the user interface.  Its all based on
X-Windows and lacked a number of features available in NEXPERT, which is
what is who their main competition is.

I think they'll be around...

Jeffrey M. Jacobs
ConsArt Systems Inc, Technology & Management Consulting
P.O. Box 3016, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
voice: (213)376-3802, E-Mail: 76702.456@COMPUSERVE.COM