-----------------
About These Files
-----------------
The files in the cmu-ai directory are from the CMU AI Repository at
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/lang/others/franzlsp
The file cmu-ai/0.doc describes the rest of the files in the cmu-ai
directory.
The tarball in the fateman directory contains the final university
release of Franz Lisp (Opus 38.92) for the VAX. This is from
Richard J. Fateman's Berkeley homepage where he says "I don't know
why you would want this old stuff, but the university software
distribution office has closed and they left a copy with me."
https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~fateman
The tarball has been extracted into the fateman/lisp directory. The
tarball contains a file named lispas and other files named opus38.92.aa,
opus38.92.ab and so forth. The file fateman/README contains some
instructions on how to actually extract the distribution if you wanted
to do that yourself.
The Franz Lisp Manual in the manual directory is from the Computer
History Museum's Software Preservation Group at
http://www.softwarepreservation.net/projects/LISP/franz
The manual describes Opus 38.69 from 1983.
Finally, this README file was written by Kris Katterjohn.
--------------------------------------------------------
Running An Old Franz Lisp Interpreter Under A New NetBSD
--------------------------------------------------------
These are the steps that I (Kris Katterjohn) performed to get an old
Franz Lisp interpreter executable from 1994 running directly on NetBSD
8.0 (which is the most recently released version as I'm writing this).
The steps consisted of compiling a kernel with some compatibility
options enabled, changing a single sysctl setting and then just
installing some library files where the interpreter expects them to be.
(I'm writing this in April 2019, which is over 25 years after the
interpreter executable was released. The fact that we can still run
this directly is just plain cool, and I was happy to see it working.)
I'm not the first person to get this running. In particular, it seems
that Christos Zoulas and Kamil Rytarowski of NetBSD have had this Franz
Lisp interpreter running on their NetBSD boxes over the last few years.
I'm not doing anything special or new, but maybe having the steps all
together below will be helpful to someone else (or me in the future).
By the way: I first tried to get this all working on a NetBSD 7.1.2
install I already had around, but I couldn't get it to work. After
getting frustrated because I thought the steps should work, I tried
again using 8.0 and it worked fine. Oh well.
In the directory cmu-ai/op38_jd you will find Jeff Dalton's port of
Franz Lisp Opus 38.92 to NetBSD 0.9 (i386) from 1994. The files
lisp.gz and liszt.gz contain executable images for the interpreter and
compiler, respectively. franz.tgz contains (among other things) some
library files.
Getting that interpreter to run directly on a amd64 NetBSD 8.0 box is
not difficult, but it does require recompiling the kernel (or having a
kernel that has the appropriate compatibility options set). The NetBSD
documentation has plenty of information on recompiling kernels and it
is easy to follow. In particular, the chapter "Compiling the kernel"
in The NetBSD Guide describes how to obtain and install the kernel
sources, how to configure the kernel, and finally how to build and
install the kernel itself.
I started with the GENERIC kernel configuration and changed it so that
all of the following were set (and I named this new kernel MINE). Many
of these options were already set and the rest were commented out. I
did not attempt to find the minimum number of options to set.
options EXEC_AOUT # required by binaries from before 1.5
options COMPAT_NOMID # NetBSD 0.8, 386BSD, and BSDI
options COMPAT_09 # NetBSD 0.9,
options COMPAT_10 # NetBSD 1.0,
options COMPAT_11 # NetBSD 1.1,
options COMPAT_12 # NetBSD 1.2 (and 386BSD and BSDI),
options COMPAT_13 # NetBSD 1.3 (and 386BSD and BSDI),
options COMPAT_14 # NetBSD 1.4,
options COMPAT_15 # NetBSD 1.5,
options COMPAT_16 # NetBSD 1.6,
options COMPAT_20 # NetBSD 2.0,
options COMPAT_30 # NetBSD 3.0,
options COMPAT_40 # NetBSD 4.0,
options COMPAT_50 # NetBSD 5.0,
options COMPAT_60 # NetBSD 6.0, and
options COMPAT_70 # NetBSD 7.0 binary compatibility.
options COMPAT_43 # and 4.3BSD
After building and installing the new kernel and then rebooting, we
also need to do the following:
$ sysctl -w vm.user_va0_disable=0
(You can add a line to /etc/sysctl.conf to have this automatically set
at boot time.)
After all of that, the setup is now something like this:
$ uname -a
NetBSD localhost 8.0 NetBSD 8.0 (MINE) #1: Wed Apr 17 10:45:59 UTC 2019 root@localhost:/usr/src/sys/arch/amd64/compile/MINE amd64
$ sysctl vm.user_va0_disable
vm.user_va0_disable = 0
The rest of the steps below are all relative to the cmu-ai/op38_jd
directory.
franz.tgz has been extracted into the franz directory. The lisplib
subdirectory contains various library files and the interpreter expects
these files to be in /usr/local/lib/lisp:
# cp -R franz/lisplib /usr/local/lib/lisp
The lisp file (originally from the compressed lisp.gz) is the interpreter.
This should give us a working Franz Lisp REPL:
$ file lisp
lisp: a.out little-endian 32-bit demand paged pure executable not stripped
$ chmod u+x lisp
$ ./lisp
Franz Lisp, Opus 38.92
-> (status version)
"Franz Lisp, Opus 38"
-> (status features)
(in-c-fasl long-filenames portable i386 ucb string unix Franz franz)
-> (length (oblist))
1415
--------
Examples
--------
Playing around with fexprs:
-> (defun foo fexpr (l) (list (eval (car l)) l))
foo
-> (getd 'foo)
(nlambda (l) (list (eval (car l)) l))
-> (foo (+ 1 2 3) (error "oops"))
(6 ((+ 1 2 3) (error "oops")))
Playing around with lexprs:
-> (defun bar n (list n (listify n)))
bar
-> (getd 'bar)
(lexpr (n) (list n (listify n)))
-> (bar 'a 'b 'c)
(3 (a b c))
Playing around with hunks:
-> (defvar myhunk (hunk 1 2 3 'a 'b 'c))
{1 2 3 a b c}
-> (hunk-to-list myhunk)
(1 2 3 a b c)
-> (car myhunk)
2
-> (cdr myhunk)
1
-> (cxr 5 myhunk)
c
Playing around with tconcs:
-> (defvar baz (tconc nil 'a))
((a) a)
-> (tconc baz 'b)
((a b) b)
-> (lconc baz '(c d e f))
((a b c d e f) f)
Playing around with fclosures:
-> (defun c () (setq x (1+ x)))
c
-> (defun make-counter () (let ((x 0)) (fclosure '(x) 'c)))
make-counter
-> (defvar c1 (make-counter))
fclosure[2]
-> (defvar c2 (make-counter))
fclosure[2]
-> (funcall c1)
1
-> (funcall c1)
2
-> (funcall c2)
1
-> (funcall c2)
2
-> (defvar cs (let ((x 0))
(cons (fclosure '(x) 'c) (fclosure '(x) 'c))))
(fclosure[2] . fclosure[2])
-> (funcall (car cs))
1
-> (funcall (car cs))
2
-> (funcall (cdr cs))
1
-> (funcall (cdr cs))
2
-> (funcall (car cs))
3
-> (fclosure-alist (car cs))
((x . 3))
-> (fclosure-alist (cdr cs))
((x . 2))
-> (symeval-in-fclosure (car cs) 'x)
3
-> (symeval-in-fclosure (cdr cs) 'x)
2
-> (set-in-fclosure (car cs) 'x 10)
10
-> (fclosure-alist (car cs))
((x . 10))
-> (funcall (car cs))
11
-> (funcall (car cs))
12
-> (defvar cl (let ((x 0)) (fclosure-list '(x) 'c '(x) 'c)))
(fclosure[2] fclosure[2])
-> (funcall (car cl))
1
-> (funcall (car cl))
2
-> (funcall (cadr cl))
3
-> (funcall (car cl))
4
Playing around with catch/throw:
-> (defun mem* (x l)
(if (or (null l) (equal x (car l)))
(throw l mytag)
(mem* x (cdr l))))
mem*
-> (defun mem (x l)
(catch (mem* x l) mytag))
mem
-> (mem 3 (list 1 2 3 4))
(3 4)
-> (mem 5 (list 1 2 3 4))
nil
Playing around with trace:
-> (trace mem mem*)
[autoload /usr/local/lib/lisp/trace]
[load /usr/local/lib/lisp/trace.l]
[load /usr/local/lib/lisp/charmac.l]
(mem mem*)
-> (mem 3 (list 1 2 3 4))
1 <Enter> mem (3 (1 2 3 4))
|1 <Enter> mem* (3 (1 2 3 4))
| 2 <Enter> mem* (3 (2 3 4))
| |3 <Enter> mem* (3 (3 4))
1 <EXIT> mem (3 4)
(3 4)
-> (mem 5 (list 1 2 3 4))
1 <Enter> mem (5 (1 2 3 4))
|1 <Enter> mem* (5 (1 2 3 4))
| 2 <Enter> mem* (5 (2 3 4))
| |3 <Enter> mem* (5 (3 4))
| | 4 <Enter> mem* (5 (4))
| | |5 <Enter> mem* (5 nil)
1 <EXIT> mem nil
nil
Playing around with errset:
-> (errset 1)
(1)
-> (errset (/ 0))
Floating Exception
nil
-> (errset (/ 0) nil)
nil
------------------
The Liszt Compiler
------------------
The liszt file (originally from the compressed liszt.gz) is the compiler.
This should also give us a REPL:
$ file liszt
liszt: a.out little-endian 32-bit demand paged pure executable not stripped
$ chmod u+x liszt
$ ./liszt
Liszt C version 8.39.spottisport [.92]
-> (status version)
"Franz Lisp, Opus 38"
-> (status features)
(no-global-reg in-c for-c in-c-fasl long-filenames portable i386 ucb string unix Franz franz)
-> (length (oblist))
1981
This liszt compiles to C:
$ echo "(defun foo () 1)" >test.l
$ ./liszt -S test.l
Compilation begins with Liszt C version 8.39.spottisport
source: test.l, result: test.c
foo
%Note: test.l: Compilation complete
%Note: test.l: Time: Real: 0:0, CPU: 0:0.00, GC: 0:0.00 for 0 gcs
$ grep -A3 bindspec test.c
static struct bindspec bindtab[] = {
{&(lambda),F00016,"foo"},
{0}
};
Autorun is not supported:
$ ./liszt -r test.l
?Error: nil: : Autorun (-r) not available
?Error: test.l: : Compilation aborted due to previous errors
The same franz.tgz (or franz directory) we used before also contains
some header files. If we use these then we can actually get an object
file:
$ ./liszt test.l
Compilation begins with Liszt C version 8.39.spottisport
source: test.l, result: test.o
foo
%Note: test.l: Compilation complete
%Note: test.l: Time: Real: 0:1, CPU: 0:0.00, GC: 0:0.00 for 0 gcs
%Note: test.l: Assembly begins
/tmp/Lzt5127.c:42:1: warning: return type defaults to 'int' [-Wimplicit-int]
init()
^
%Note: test.l: Assembly completed successfully
$ nm test.o
0000000000000000 t F00016
U Fixzero
0000000000000000 d bindtab
U clink
0000000000000006 T init
0000000000000008 b linker
U lispsys
0000000000000000 b trans
This is basically where I've stopped so far. More will need to be
done in order to actually be able to fasl in some generated object
files and have it work.