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Date:Mon Jul 29 13:31:23 1999 
Subject:Re: PC Windows Poplog can now be extracted with Winzip 
From:Stephen Isard 
Volume-ID:990729.02 

Aaron warns:

> (Note the PC version of Poplog has none of the graphical facilities,
> and some of the interfaces to the operating system don't yet work
> properly. Maybe some PC expert will look into the problems and fix
> them?)

There are also some points on which the documentation is out of step
with the system.  Nothing very serious, but people unfamiliar with
windows or poplog or both could get confused.  In case others might find
it useful, I report a few things I encountered getting pop11 running
under Windows 95 (which was actually remarkably easy).

1. The README from the tar file says that the program INSTALL.EXE in the
DISK1 directory will

    (a) prompt you to select an installation directory

    (b) copy files into that directory


    (c) update the registry

    (d) create a Poplog icon on the Start Programs menu or a new Program
        Manager group as appropriate for your version of Windows

Under Windows 95, I wasn't prompted.  It just went ahead and created a
subdirectory tree under the "C:\Program Files" directory.  (Yes, Windows
95 allows spaces in filenames.)

It did create a Poplog icon on the Start Programs menu, which runs
the command 

"<long directory name containing spaces>\winpop11.exe" +startup

which it starts up in the directory containing the executables.

2. The README file refers you to the README.TXT file that gets put into
the installation directory, which it says is not available anywhere
else.  It now appears to be available as the file pcwinpoplog.txt on
the Birminham ftp site, so you can read it ahead of time if you want.
That file says:

> Win32 Poplog provides just two executable commands
> 
>     pop11.exe       -- base Console application
>     winpop11.exe    -- base GUI application
> 
> These are found in $usepop/pop/pop, the traditional 'popsys'  directory;
> you should add  this directory to  your PATH  if you want  to run  these
> commands from the Command Prompt.
> 
> To run a standard Poplog, use
> 
>     pop11 +startup
> 
> and for each of the languages add the appropriate image name --  prolog,
> clisp or pml -- as follows:
> 
>     pop11 +startup +clisp
> 
> The standard command-line arguments are supported, except for %x.
> 
> The Poplog  program  group contains  sample  program items  for  running
> Poplog. The 'Pop-11'  item runs Pop-11  in a console  window; the  'Ved'
> item runs Pop-11 in a  Ved window. To run  other languages, copy one  or
> other  program  item  and  change  the  command  line  to  include   the
> appropriate language image.

The file is dated 1996 and explicitly warns that features may change.
So:

3. Yes, there are the two executables.  The plain pop11 comes up in an
msdos window and ved is not available, apparently because the window
is of no known terminal type.

4. Winpop11 comes up as ved in immediate mode.  I personally find that a
convenient way to interact with pop11, but I can see that someone who
isn't expecting it might take a while to figure out what is going on.

People familiar with unix (or other?) shells that have history
mechanisms can think of immediate mode as an extension of that idea.
You can think of a shell with a history mechanism as editing the history
file with a line editor that shows you one line of the file at a time.
It allows you to move up and down in the file and perform various search
and replace operations, but you are only shown the line that the cursor
is on.  Immediate mode edits the history file with a screen editor.  You
can see a whole buffer of lines at a time.  As with a shell+history,
pressing <return> executes whatever line the cursor is on at the moment.

Ok, it isn't *exactly* like a shell with a history mechanism because
some of the lines in the file are pop11 output, rather than just user
input, and here you can actually edit the history, so that it no longer
gives a true record of your interactions, which you can't do with any
of the shell histories that I have encountered.

See HELP IM for more on immediate mode.

As far as I can tell, there is no way of getting from ved to a plain old
pop11 prompt of the sort you have with pop11.exe.  You can turn off
immediate mode, e.g., by executing the pop11 command "bye", but that
still leaves you editing the history file in ved.

5. There is no Poplog program *group* or Ved command that I can find.
In fact, to run pop11.exe, you have to either make an icon for it
(e.g., by editing a copy of the one that runs winpop11.exe) or start up
an msdos window to call it from.  In particular, you *can't* (or I
couldn't) just click on the pop11.exe item in the file manager.  I
suppose that is because it then tries to run pop11.exe without the
"+startup" argument.

6. Given 4 above, the paragraph in INSTALL.EXE from the tar file saying

> On Windows, select Poplog from the Programs menu (accessible via
> Startup).
> 
> This should print out something like:
> 
>     Sussex Poplog (Version 15.53 Mon Jul 12 19:45:02 BST 1999)
>     Copyright (c) 1982-1999 University of Sussex. All rights reserved.
> 
>     Setpop
>     :
> 
> It ends with a colon, the standard Pop-11 prompt. You can type pop-11
> commands directly to the prompt. They will be compiled and run. Then you
> can type more commands, etc. Usually, however, it is more convenient to
> run Pop-11 from inside an editor, which saves re-typing if you make a
> mistake.

is a little misleading.  You are already running inside an editor.  And

> You can leave pop-11 by typing CTRL-D, (or "bye).

is true in that "bye" stops your text getting interpreted as pop11, but
CTRL-D didn't have any effect for me.

7.  The function keys at the top of the keyboard are not bound to ved
commands.  The righthand keypad keys don't work until you turn off
Num Lock, which Windows 95 turns on for me.  <ENTER>hkeys says it can't
find its help file.
 
Sorry, this has become longer than I intended.  Hope it's of use to
someone.

Steve Isard