This is GNU CLISP, a Common Lisp implementation.


What is LISP?
-------------

LISP is a programming language. It was invented by J. McCarthy in 1959.
There have been many dialects of it, but nowadays LISP has been standardized
and wide-spread due to the industrial standard COMMON LISP. There are
applications in the domains of symbolic knowledge processing (AI), numerical
mathematics (MACLISP yielded numerical code as good as FORTRAN), and
widely used programs like editors (EMACS) and CAD (AUTOCAD).
There is an introduction to the language:

  Sheila Hughes: Lisp. Pitman Publishing Limited, London 1986.
  107 pages.

After a while wou will need the standard text containing the language
definition:

  Guy L. Steele Jr.: Common Lisp - The Language. Digital Press.
  1st edition, 1984, 465 pages.
  2nd edition, 1990, 1032 pages.

This book is available in HTML form via FTP from
  ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/lang/lisp/doc/cltl/cltl_ht.tgz
and can be viewed through WWW under
  http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/Web/Groups/AI/html/cltl/cltl2.html or
  http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/html/cltl/cltl2.html .

For experts: This standard text has emerged into an ANSI standard, which
you can get free of charge from

  http://www.lisp.org/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/

LISP is run in an interactive environment. You input forms, and they will be
evaluated at once. Thus you can inspect variables, call functions with given
arguments or define your own functions.


Contents:
---------

It consists of the following files:

      lispinit.mem       memory image needed for startup
      clisp.1            manual page in Unix man format
      clisp.man          manual page
      clisp.html         manual page in HTML format
      impnotes.html      implementation notes
      LISP-tutorial.txt  LISP tutorial for beginners
      CLOS-guide.txt     brief guide to CLOS
      editors.txt        some words about text editors for Lisp
      README             this text
      SUMMARY            short description of CLISP
      ANNOUNCE           announcement
      NEWS               list of modifications since the last version
      COPYRIGHT          copyright notice
      GNU-GPL            free software license
      config.lisp        site-dependent configuration

and - to your convenience, if you like reading source -

      *.lisp             the source of lispinit.mem
      *.fas              the same files, already compiled


Installation:
-------------

Change the strings in src/config.lisp, using a text editor.
Then start

         lisp.exe -M lispinit.mem

When the LISP prompt

      > _

appears, type

        (compile-file "src/config.lisp")
        (load "src/config.fas")

and then

        (saveinitmem)

to overwrite the file lispinit.mem with your configuration. Then

        (exit)

Then create a directory, and put the executable and the memory image there.
Assuming D:\LIB\LISP :

   mkdir d:\lib\lisp
   copy lisp.exe d:\lib\lisp
   copy lispinit.mem d:\lib\lisp

And create a batch file that starts lisp:

   copy con c:\bat\clisp.bat
   d:\lib\lisp\lisp.exe -M d:\lib\lisp\lispinit.mem -B d:\lib\lisp\ %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
   [Ctrl-Z]


When you encounter problems:
----------------------------

After errors, you are in the debugger:

     1. Break> _

You can evaluate forms, as usual. Furthermore:

     Help
               prints help
     Abort     or
     Unwind
               climbs up to the next higher input loop
     Backtrace
               shows the contents of the stack, helpful for debugging

And you can look at the values of the variables of the functions where the
error occurred.

and how to produce it reliably to the authors or the maintainer.
Please accompany it with the CLISP version, which you get by calling
(lisp-implementation-version), as well as the OS name and version.


Sources:
--------

The sources of CLISP are available from
     ftp://clisp.cons.org/pub/lisp/clisp/source/clispsrc*


Mailing Lists:
--------------

There are three mailing lists for users of CLISP. You find subscription
information and archives on the homepage http://clisp.cons.org/.


Acknowledgement:
----------------

We are indebted to
  * Guy L. Steele and many others for the Common Lisp specification.


Authors:
--------

        Bruno Haible
        Michael Stoll

Email: clisp-list@lists.sourceforge.net

Maintainer:
-----------

        Sam Steingold

Email: clisp-list@lists.sourceforge.net
