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From: Isaac_K_Rabinovitch@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Scheme on a PC?
Message-ID: <646@cup.portal.com>
Date: Mon, 24-Aug-87 12:14:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: cup.646
Posted: Mon Aug 24 12:14:45 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Aug-87 07:16:09 EDT
References: <316@m10ux.UUCP> <527@yetti.UUCP> <678@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
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>
>I run TI's PC Scheme on my 4.77 MHz XT clone and it is so slow that it
>is almost unusable.  The emacs-like editor won't even react in real
>typing time.
>
>I have tried TI Scheme on a couple of AT machines (one was 6 MHz and
>the other was 8 MHz) and the performance was quite reasonable.
>
>My only gripe with the implementation itself is that I can't compile
>something and run it without being in Scheme itself.
>
>Darren Leigh
>dleigh@hplabs.hp.com

I've run TI scheme on a Toshiba T1100 (the old model with the 8088), which
I don't think is that much faster than the clone Leigh subscribes.  I found
Scheme's performance marginally acceptable, though I never ran any really
serious programs that way:  one really needs a hard disk for that kind of
software.
 
I wouldn't use the builtin editor with scheme, it's missing some basic features.


I seem to recall the refusal to provide native-code compilation is a basic
ideological decision of the inventors of scheme, who didn't want to introduce
the ambiguity of interpretation that would entail.  Still, there's a discussion
of writing a Scheme compiler (in Scheme, of course) in Abelson and Sussman's
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (I haven't got that far
yet, so I don't know how complete the discussion is).