🚀 go-pugleaf

A new version (1.39) of BinProlog for SPARC, SUN3, NEXT and 386/486 is
now available.

BinProlog is free for research and other non-profit purposes.

The compiler makes 215 KLIPS (on Sparc 2) and still uses a very small
(41K) emulator.

The NEXT version (101 KLIPS) is a new addition to the distribution.

You can get it by anonymous ftp from:

 139.103.16.2 (clement.info.umoncton.ca) in the directory BinProlog. 

FILES:

====>  binpro.1.39.tar.Z -- BinProlog 1.39 for Sparc, sun3, Next and 386
---->  papers.tar.Z -- papers related to the implementation

A NEW data area ("the blackboard") has been added, where heap-based
terms can be stored and accessed efficiently with a a 2-key hashing function.

The copying algorithm is relatively smart: parts of the heap objects
already on the blackboard are not copied but just "pointed to".

Operationally, the blackboard looks "older" than everything on the heap.

Objects on the blackboard have indefinite extent. Their
"names" however, are "rigid designators" that can change their reference.
If the garbage collector "can prove" that an object or some part of it
will never be used again, the space is eventually recuperated.
Although objects cannot be "changed" they can be further instantiated as it happens to ordinary Prolog terms.

Otherwise, objects on the blackboard behave logically: they can be unified,
they are subject to backtracking and so on.

The blackboard can be used either through a Linda-style interface
or through an assert-retract style interface. It also gives constant-time
sparse arrays and lemmas.

A lot of basic Prolog utilities have been added (dynamic clauses,
a metainterpreter with tracing facility, sort, setof, dynamic operators
and more arithmetic).

Now BinProlog can manipulate continuations as first order objects,
using 3 blackboard-based primitives, push_cc/0 call_cc/0 and pop_cc/0.

A few programs (an automatic Tetris player, a knight-tour, an OR-parallel
simulator, Fibonacci & tak with lemmas) illustrate some of the new features.

Please send comments and bug reports 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