TI PC-SCHEME: What is the Future?
defr...@uni2a.unige.ch
Is there anybody at Texas Instruments who could tell us what is the
future of PC-SCHEME and other related AI products from TI?
PC-SCHEME v. 3.0 (and the protected mode version 4.0) has been around since
1988. It is (at least I think) still sold by TI (most "Programmers' shops"
show it on their cathalogues). It complains to R3RS and has many enhancements
such as scoops and other extensions useful on PC's. This, the low price
and the great documentation makes it the best implementation of SCHEME on
PC's and probably the most used Scheme in Computer Science courses (on the
student side, at least).
Now, TI has disclosed its source code for this product and made it available
to everybody. More than that, the biggest part of its AI division has vanished.
(don't forget that SCHEME has been the platform on which TI has developed
AI products for the PC world).
Does this mean that PC-SCHEME won't be anymore supported by TI ?
In particular, it seems that there are some incompatibilities with the
new 486 PC's that make it unusable on these platforms.
There are also some PC-SCHEME based packages, such as the Personal Consultant
Plus Expert System shell, which has the same problems on 486 PC's and which
also hasn't been improved since 1988.
Now, this is a package which, even when heavily discounted, costs still more
than $2000, and usually application written with it are worth tenth of
thousands dollars!
It would be very unfair from TI if they aren't willing to fix PC-SCHEME so
that these applications could migrate to the new hardware (and beleave me,
this kind of soft NEED big and fast computers) .
So please, I'd like to know the official position of TI with regard to
PC-SCHEME and SCHEME based products, so that we'll be able to decide
between throwing away either our expert system or our Compaq Deskpro 486, or
just waiting a few monts to get an upgrade.
Knowing that we and other people could save a lot of money and a bit of
esteem for TI.
- massimo -
mas...@cuisun.unige.ch
Chris Haynes
>
>Is there anybody at Texas Instruments who could tell us what is the
>future of PC-SCHEME and other related AI products from TI?
>
>PC-SCHEME v. 3.0 (and the protected mode version 4.0) has been around since
>1988.
How does one obtain the protected mode version? Does it allow extra memory
to be accessed more efficiently? Does it allow extra memory (beyond 640K)
to be accessed with no efficiency penalty? That would be great! Does it
run on both 286 and 386 machines?
>Now, TI has disclosed its source code for this product and made it available
>to everybody...
Really? Where? Does this mean they've put PC Scheme in the public domain?
I find that hard to believe, but if true it would be some consolation for
their failure to support it.
-- Chris Haynes
Tim Anderson
>future of PC-SCHEME and other related AI products from TI?
>
>Now, TI has disclosed its source code for this product and made it available
Really? Where can I get this afore mentioned source code???