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Date:Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:39:07 +0000 (UTC) 
Subject:Re: help with ai 
From:Aaron Sloman 
Volume-ID: 


Apogies for delayed response.

On Thu, 9 Sep 2004, english tutor wrote:

> hello . I i read your computers and thoughts info. I m
> interested in learning neural nets and ga( i have the
> poplog but there is only a little about neural nets)

The neural net facilities available for poplog (in David Young's
popvision package, and in the poplog 'neural' package will not
work on windows, only on unix/linux systems. That's true also
of everything in poplog that uses graphical facilities though there is a
project to port the whole system to windows. See

	http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/openpoplog.html

If you buy vmware and run it under windows, then I believe that the
standard linux poplog package will work including all the graphics.

(I have seen it running under vmware on a laptop running Windows XP).
But vmware is not cheap. See http://www.vmware.com/ About US$200)

> how do i use it to make expert systems and chatbots
> that learn and artificial life. i am a beginner and im
> a little slow about learning. ( attention deficit
> disorder) but im determined. any help is appreciated.

There are a lot of online tutorial files included in poplog, though
they may not teach you precisely what you want. They may get you
close however. E.g. the poprulebase package is ideal for learning
to build simple expert systems, and it would also be usable for
a chatbot that learns while you interact with it.

The 'teach ga' file gives a simple tutorial on genetic algorithms.
There are many more.

> ps im new to linux but pop seems to work ok. i mostly
> use windows but the simagent kit doesnt seem to work
> (nor do some other programs like neural nets the tour
> guide from computers and thoughts.

Most of the simagent examples require the graphics which will work only
in the X window environment, which needs either linux, or vmware
under windows.

The tour gide should work, though there may be slight incompabilities
between the version of pop11 it uses (dating from the mid 1980s) and the
latest version.

To get help, I suggest you first join the pop-forum email list so that
you can see replies posted to your questions. You can join by sending
a message to majordomo AT cs.bham.ac.uk containing just one line

	subscribe pop-forum

Note that all messages posted to pop-forum are relayed to the
comp.lang.pop newsgroup, and go round the world. Replies posted to the
news group will be relayed to pop-forum.

When asking for help, give precise information about the facilities
you are using (e.g. windows, linux) what you tried, what you expected
to happen, what actually happened. Copy program output into your
message if you can, especially error (mishap) messages.

If the question is too vague nobody may know what to say in answer.
E.g. just saying that something did not work will probably not
give anyone ideas about how to help.

Before trying to learn how to write programs in pop11 it is a
good idea to become fluent at using the editor Ved, including
knowing how to mark a range, how to compile a range, how to
search in a file, how to move up and down and sideways
quickly, how to switch between files. (start with
'teach quickved')

If you are already a fluent Emacs user and wish to use that, then
on linux/unix you can use the emacs package for poplog users:
	http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/emacs.tar.gz
		(about 74 Kbytes)

Are you already an experienced user of other programming languages,
or is Pop11 your first programming language? Experienced users
can get help from much shorter answers to their questions!

Aaron
====
Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/ )
JOBS AVAILABLE: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/
PAPERS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/  (also talks in /talks )
FREE BOOK: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/crp/
FREE TOOLS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/packages/simagent.html