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From: tarau@IRO.UMontreal.CA (Paul Tarau)
Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT: BinProlog 3.30
Message-ID: <D3tADM.MpE@IRO.UMontreal.CA>
Summary: new BinProlog release
Keywords: Prolog system, Prolog to C translator
Sender: Paul Tarau tarau@info.umoncton.ca
Organization: Universite de Moncton, Canada
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 01:20:09 GMT
Lines: 126

BinProlog 3.30 is now available by ftp from

  clement.info.umoncton.ca  (139.103.16.2)
  ftp.elis.rug.ac.be        (157.193.67.1)

or on the Web as ftp://clement.info.umoncton.ca/BinProlog.

The full distribution is in the file: 
   
  BinProlog3.30.tar.gz

BinProlog is a fairly complete Prolog implementation featuring both
C-emulated execution and generation of standalone applications by
compilation to C. It is developed by Paul Tarau and based on his
compact and efficient BinWAM abstract machine, a specialization of the
WAM for the execution of continuation passing binary logic programs.

New features in version 3.30:

  - source-level modules
  - faster compilation to C and more efficient generated C-code
  - ability to fine-tune optimisation for speed or size of
    the resulting C-code (directory pl2c)
  - very small (dynamically linked) standalone executables (5K) 
    for Solaris 2.x
  - improved (fileevent based) Tcl/Tk interface now running under
    tcl7.4b2 and tk4.0b2 (directory TCL)
  - help/1 detecting near-matching predicate definitions
  - examples of graph problems and constraint  solving with linear
    implication (progs/lgraph.pl, progs/lmap.pl progs/lconstr.pl)
  - new builtin change_arg/3 supporting efficient failure driven
    loops and higher-order Haskell-style operators (library/high.pl
    and library/matrix.pl)

Some other features:

  - dynamic code, intuitionistic and linear implication,
  - logical and permanent global variables, 
  - backtrackable destructive assignment,
  - circular term unification, 
  - extended DCGs (now built in the engine as `invisible grammars')
    (progs
  - continuation manipulation primitives, 
  - a garbage-collected hashing based global dictionary for constant-time
    sparse arrays and graphs,
  - efficient higher-order programming builtins,
  - C-compatible (double) floating point operations, 

This distribution contains the Prolog source of the compiler and
executables for:

  - Sparc - Solaris 2.x, SunOS 4.x; 
  - DEC Alpha - 64 bit version; 
  - DEC MIPS; 
  - 68k - NeXT, SUN3;
  - IBM RS6000 ;
  - HP PA-RISC (two variants)
  - 386-486 Linux
  - 386-486 (MsDOS+Windows 3.1 - with DOS-extender go32 ver. 1.10).

Multi-BinProlog 3.30 is a multi-threaded Linda-style parallel extension
to BinProlog for Solaris 2.3 developed by Koen De Bosschere.  Koen's
ISO C-parser and C-writer with full C-sources are also available for
considerably faster I/O and stream-support.

Some research papers explaining the implementations, example programs,
benchmarks and a User's Guide can be found at the same site.

Use of BinProlog executables and user-generated standalone applications
is FREE for research and other non-profit purposes.  BinProlog SUPPORT,
use of the software for industrial applications, licensing of full
C-sources with ability to use the full BinProlog system as an embedded
logic engine, need a separate agreement (see files BINARY.LICENSING and
SOURCE.LICENSING in the distribution).

             BinProlog 3.30 minimal configuration:

Uncompressed versions of BinProlog 3.30 are also available on

  clement.info.umoncton.ca  (139.103.16.2)

in directory BinProlog/UNCOMPRESSED. If you do not want the full
distribution you can get only the binary for your particular
architecture/operating system from the directory:

  BinProlog/UNCOMPRESSED/bin

i.e. one of the following:

bp.sparc.solaris.gz		bp.pc.linux.gz
bp.sparc.sunos.gz		bp.r6000.ibm.gz		
bp.parisc.hpux.gz		bp.parisc.hp.gz
bp.alpha.dec.gz			bp.68k.sun3.gz
bp.mips.dec.gz	        	bp.68k.next.gz
386/*

  BinProlog/UNCOMPRESSED/doc/art.ps (UserGuide).

After getting the files and uncompressing with "gunzip" type something
like

  bp.alpha.dec

to run BinProlog 3.30.

For DOS/Windows 3.1 machines get all the files from

  MinimalBinProlog3.30ForDOS

Edit the bp.bat file according to your path-information and run with:
 
   bp

Please send comments, bug reports and requests for industrial licensing
information to:

    binprolog@info.umoncton.ca.

Paul Tarau
Dept. of Computer Science  
Universite de Moncton 
Moncton N.B. 
CANADA E1A-3E9

E-MAIL: tarau@info.umoncton.ca

