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- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.441
-
-
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 1 Biographical Information
-
- This section contains the biographical notes from his novels, some
- notes about how he came to write, and short biographical notes about
- Neil Gaiman and Josh Kirby.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 1.1 Personal History
-
- Terry Pratchett is an author of humourous fantasy-based
- science-fiction novels. He has been favourably compared to Douglas
- Adams, P.G Wodehouse and Tom Sharpe. A lot of people rather like his
- books.
-
- (This is stolen from his liner notes:)
-
- Terry Pratchett is, on average, a sort of youngish
- middle-aged. He lives in Somerset with his wife and
- daughter, and long ago chose journalism as a career
- because it was indoor work with no heavy lifting.
-
- Beyond that he positively refuses to be drawn. People
- never read these biographies anyway, do they? They
- want to get on with the book, not wade through masses
- of prose designed to suggest that the author is really a
- very interesting person so look, okay, he wrote these
- other books, all right. Most were also about the
- Discworld, and actually quite a lot of people liked
- them.
-
- He grows carnivorous plants as a hobby; they are a lot
- less interesting than people believe.
-
- * * *
-
- For those people who really need to know, Terry Pratchett
- was born in Buckinghamshire in 1948. He's managed to avoid
- all the really interesting jobs authors take in order to
- look good in this sort of biography. In his search for a
- quiet life he got a job as a Press officer with the Central
- Electricity Generating Board just after Three Mile Island,
- which shows his unerring sense of timing. He now writes
- full time. It's true about the carnivorous plants, though.
-
- (and this one is stolen from Guards! Guards!:)
-
- Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and is still not dead. He
- started work as a journalist one day in 1965 and saw his first
- corpse three hours later, work experience _meaning_ something
- in those days. After doing just about every job it's possible
- to do in provincial journalism, except of course covering
- Saturday afternoon football, he joined the Central Electricity
- Generating Board and became press officier for four nuclear
- power stations. He'd write a book about his experiences if he
- thought anyone would believe it.
-
- All this came to an end in 1987 when it became obvious that the
- Discworld series was much more enjoyable than real work. Since
- then the books have reached double figures and have a regular
- place in the bestseller lists. He's also written three books
- for children (the _Truckers_ trilogy). Occasionally he gets
- accused of literature.
-
- Terry Pratchett lives in Somerset with his wife Lyn and daughter
- Rhianna. He says writing is the most fun anyone can have by
- themselves.
-
- The Carpet People adds:
- [TP lives in Somerset] where he grows carnivorous plants and
- tries to make computers do things they were never intended to
- do.
-
- Only You Can Save Mankind:
- [TP lives in Somerset], and says he writes for anyone old
- enough to understand.
-
- Lords and Ladies:
- He also grows carnivorous plants and thinks the world could
- use more orang-utans.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 1.2 How He came to write
-
- He started writing short stories, several of which were published.
- His first, "The Hades Business", which was published in Science
- Fantasy #60 (vol 20, 1963) was the first story he ever wrote. He got
- 10/10 for it (the first time he had gotten 10/10 for anything except
- for a painting which his teacher had *thought* were two dinosaurs
- fighting) and it was published in the school magazine.
-
- There it would have ended, except for his school headmaster who
- addressed an assembly shortly afterward and announced that he didn't
- approve of the "moral tone" of the story. Well, the magazine, which
- would have struggled to break even, sold out within 15 minutes. He
- learned an important lesson, right then - by writing it is possible to
- infuriate your enemies as well as please your friends.
-
- He then had the story typed up by his Aunt and sold it to Science
- Fantasy, and with the profits bought a typewriter. This his first act
- as an income-earner was to fire his Aunt. His mother rewarded this
- Thatcherite attitude and paid for his typing lessons and he was on his
- way.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 1.3 Neil Gaiman
-
- Neil Gaiman is an sf author whose credits include:
- * the _Sandman Comics_ (monthly, 3 collections so far:
- - Preludes and Nocturnes [1 85286 326 9],
- - The Dolls House [0 930289 59 5] and
- - Dream Country [1 56389 016]),
- * _Black_Orchid_ (a one-off comic in 3 parts, also now collected in a
- single graphic novel [1 85286 336 6] published by Titan Books),
- * _Violent_Cases_ [1 85286 372 2] published by Titan Books,
- * _Signal_to_Noise_ [0 575 05284 8] published by VG Graphics. This
- was originally serialised in _The_Face_ magazine.
- * _The Books of Magic_ (no apparent ISBN), separate books I to IV,
- illustrated by various artists, printed by DC Comics.
- * _Temps_ (a collection of superhero short stories which claims to be
- "Devised by Neil Gaiman and Alex Stewart" [0 14 014560 5]),
- * _Ghastly Beyond Belief_ (an anthology of truly awful SF)
- [0-09-936830-7],
- * and _Don't Panic: The Official Companion to The Hitch-Hiker's Guide
- To The Galaxy_ [1 85286 0138 8].
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 1.4 Josh Kirby
-
- Josh Kirby is an artist who has been drawing covers for many years
- now. He has done the covers for (among others) Terry Pratchett, Craig
- Shaw Gardner, Esther Friesner, Dan McGirt and the new editions of Tom
- Holt's novels.
-
- He also illustrated the Discworld (sort-of picture) book "Eric". He
- has a poster book out, with large versions of the first seven
- Discworld covers [ISBN? Title? Publisher?]
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 2 Eccentricities of Books
-
- Terry's books are available to varying degrees in the different
- countries around the world. Enclosed here is some information on
- which books were released where, as well as some addresses for stores
- that are reliable.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 2.1 Eric
-
- Eric wasn't released in the US, because Roc were uneasy about the big
- edition and didn't buy it; people are talking to them now about the
- mass market version. (source, Terry Pratchett post on 8 Aug 1992).
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 2.2 UK Bookstores
-
- Andromeda Books,
- 84 Suffolk Street,
- Birmingham,
- BA1 1TA,
- UK
-
- Forbidden Planet,
- 11 (I think, but what the hell, it'll find them) New Oxford Street,
- London
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 2.3 US Bookstores
-
- [?]
- ----------------------------------------
- 2.4 Translations
-
- [?]
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 2.5 Covers and the absence of Kirby
-
- Later US editions don't have Kirby covers. Apparently the Kirby
- covers make for confusion with Craig Shaw's Gardner's "humourous"
- fantasy (which isn't at all in Terry's league). This is only true of
- Sourcery and later books. The Colour of Magic through Mort had the
- same Kirby covers as the UK editions.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 3 Computers and TP
-
- Terry is not only interested in computers, but is also on the net.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 3.1 His E-Mail address
-
- His e-mail address is tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk. He warns that
- "people who email me direct will get terse answers to the 'Hey, you're
- not really TP, are you?' type questions, which still seem to be
- turning up -- and I also tend to get a bit brief when its questions
- that get regularly aired in the conference. Apart from that, I'm a
- real polite correspondent -- if I have time ...".
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 3.2 His Setup
-
- He owns the fastest 486 he could buy, he writes with WordPerfect 4.2
- and uses a laptop when travelling. He doesn't like windows or mice.
-
- He also used to own an Amstrad, and is a fan of the classic isometric
- perspective games, _Batman_ and _Head Over Heels_.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 3.3 "The Colour of Magic" Game
-
- There was a game called "The Colour of Magic" released by Delta 4,
- which contained passages straight from the book. It was available for
- 8-bit machines, the Spectrum and C64. It was produced by the company
- behind _Bored of the Rings_, _Robin of Sherlock_ and _The Boggit_,
- using the Quill adventure creator. It even had a picture of Death
- when you died, wearing a "Have a nice day" badge.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4 Merchandising
-
- There are a lot of informal efforts at merchandising around, but no
- really commercial ones. This section explains why.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4.1 The Royal Position
-
- "'Everything works if people are sensible': It's all down to
- who's doin what, for whom, and what might loosely be called
- the spirit of the whole thing. Fans doing things for other
- fans, such as Octarine does in the UK, (t-shirts and stuff
- for cost+) -- that's fine. And I've let people do more
- than that to raise funds for a con. I'd only get twitchy
- if it looked as though we were in real merchandising
- territory -- four-colour sweatshirts in Forbidden Planet,
- adverts in magazines ... and my concern there would be as
- much about fans getting value for money as anything else."
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4.2 Discworld Models
-
- Thanks to gds@ukc.ac.uk (G.D.Staines) for this:
-
- Discworld characters - everyone from Death to Great A'Tuin himself (or
- herself) - step (or crawl) out of the page in a new range of models by
- Clarecraft Designs,
- Woolpit,
- Bury St. Edmunds,
- Suffolk IP30 9SH.
-
- Tel:+44 359 41277 for a list of stockists or further information.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4.3 Octarine
-
- Terry has this to say:
- The officially unofficial Not-the-Terry-Pratchett-Fan-Club. The guy
- to write to is Chris Tregenza, 14 Runswick Drive, Wollaton,
- Nottingham, NG8 1JN. It's like this: a couple of years ago they
- approached me, and I said I thought it would be an amazingly bad idea
- (I mean, what do you do after issue three of the magazine: 'Um. He's
- done another book. It's great/okay/ not as good as the last one IMHO.
- Um. Is he losing more hair, or what?' So I suggested they broaden
- the base to include humourous sf/fantasy generally. And it seems to
- have worked. They resemble ZZ9 a lot and there's an overlap of
- members; I'd say it's probably more an organisation that people who
- like the DW books might enjoy belonging to rather than a fan club). I
- go along to their birthday meetings (to merry cries of "Who's he?",
- "Throw him out!" and so on). But there's no learned articles on the
- DW, no signed photos of The Master, no 'official news' ... and that's
- fine by me.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4.4 Discworld Maps
-
- A map of A-M is being prepared for the Discworld Companion. The guy
- doing it had to pinpoint the Assassins' Guild, for example, from
- references in six different books. Worked, too. (Don't ask when it's
- coming out -- one day ...). Did you know there are no fewer than
- eight eating/drinking places mentioned in A-M? TP didn't.
-
- More information - the guy doing it is Steven Briggs (the chap who is
- also adapting books for theatre) and it will probably, weighing one
- thing with another, in the balance of circumstance, given full
- reservation and understanding that the world is an uncertain place, be
- out in late '93.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4.5 Truckers Video
-
- There is a video of _Truckers_ available. The details are:
- Thames Television International, Video Collection International
- VHS TV 8159, 110 minutes, VHS-PAL, price: approx. 8 pounds.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4.6 Computer Games
-
- See section 3.3. The company went out of business, so currently there
- are no Discworld computer games.
-
- Terry wants you to seek his OK before you write Discworld MUDs. His
- e-mail address is in section 3.1
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4.7 The Mort Film
-
- A production company was put together and there was US and
- Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script
- drafts which wet down well and everything was looking fine and then
- the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power
- Cable, Nebraska, and other centes of culture, and the Death/skeleton
- bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with
- it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you
- read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT,
- it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys.
-
- Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the
- medication and come back in a hundred years.
-
- Currently, since the amount of money available for making movies in
- Europe is about sixpence, the consortium is looking for some more
- intelligent Americans in the film business. This may prove difficult.
-
- It could have been worse. I've heard what Good Omens was looking like
- by the time Sovereign's option mercifully ran out -- set in America,
- no Four Horsemen...oh god.
- (from Terry himself, 2 Nov 1992)
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 4.8 Plays
-
- The Guards! Guards! play (early June next year):
-
- Write to:
- Stephen Briggs,
- 23 Elms Drive,
- Old Marston,
- Oxford OX3 ONN
-
- ... who is in the bemused state of taking tons of orders ALREADY.
-
- In the wind also are another version of MORT and, aha, a musical based
- on Wyrd Sisters. There are also various tentative plans for DW
- productions in Australia and California (GAG ME WITH A SPOON). As
- soon as things are firm, they'll get posted here and on CIX in the UK.
- (Terry himself, 29 Oct 1992)
-
- MORT...the Play.
-
- The three-thespian version of Mort was by the Flying Thing Theatre
- Company of Liverpool and was on in that city earlier this year. I've
- just heard that they're well into planning a tour in SW England for
- the first three months of '93. They're worth seeing. I laughed a lot
- (even though they're partly mime artists).
-
- As soon as I hear their finalised tour dates, I'll post them here and
- on CIX.
- (Terry himself, 2 Nov 1992)
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 5 Related Files
-
- Terry is a popular chappie. Here are some other electronically
- available documents which you might like to look at.
- ----------------------------------------
- 5.1 The Terry Pratchett Bibliography
-
- Circulated by
- Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz
- this contains ISBN numbers, titles and blurbs for all TP's books.
- It should be available (soon) via FTP as
- ftp.uu.net:/pub/usenet/alt.fan.pratchett/pratchett-biblio-faq
- This is posted around the first and fifteenth of every month to
- alt.fan.pratchett
- and new.answers
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 5.2 The Annotated Pratchett
-
- Circulated by
- leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl
- (Leo Breebaart), this explains the subtleties of Terry's works. It is
- currently at v4.0 and is posted to alt.fan.pratchett every month. It
- can be retrieved via anonymous FTP as
- theory.lcs.mit.edu:pub/dmjones/annotated-pratchett
- or
- potemkin.cs.pdx.edu:/pub/pratchett/annotated-pratchett
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 6 Miscellany
-
- Here's some stuff that didn't fit into any other category.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 6.1 Similar Authors
-
- P.G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Jerome K. Jerome, Robert Rankin, Tom
- Sharpe, Tom Holt, Calvin Trillin, P.J O'Rourke and Dave Barry are some
- people whose styles are similar.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 6.2 Rincewind's Name
-
- Terry himself pronounces it to rhyme with "Mince pinned" and in Eric,
- Rincewind meets his ancestor whose translated name means "Washer of
- Winds". Evidence would then tend to point to this pronounciation.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 6.3 More Rincewind
-
- Terry has said that he will write another Rincewind novel. When,
- well, that's a different question :-)
- [more?]
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 6.4 The Future
-
- The next DW book will probably be a sequel to Guards! Guards!,
- containing a slightly expanded City Watch (a troll and a dwarf now on
- the strength as a result of affirmative action hiring procedures)
- Captain Vimes' wedding day, and Carrot learning a thing or two....
- The working title is "Men at Arms."
-
- Terry also wants to expand into YA (Young Adult) books as well. He
- has "Johnny and the Dead" coming out around April 1993.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 6.5 Inconsistencies
-
- Well, he *is* fallible. Known inconsistencies are:
- * the number of eyes that Greebo has in _Witches_Abroad_
- * in _TCOM_, All's Fallowe is the one night of the year when witches
- stay home in bed. In _Wyrd_Sisters_ however, this occurs on
- Hogswatch night.
- * there are inconsistencies about smells: in _TLF_, Rincewind asks
- what a smell is, and Twoflower thinks that it is bacon. Later on,
- however, Twoflower is described as having "no sense of smell".
- Rincewind, in _Sourcery_, is an Ankh-Morporkian who (like all
- Ankh-Morporkians) has no sense of smell.
- * there are lots of geographical inconsistencies, which caused TP to
- preface _Sourcery_ with "This book does not contain a map. Please
- feel free to draw your own". One of the major inconsistencies
- which few people spot is that given the size of the Disc, and the
- distance the sun would therefore need to travel around it in 24
- hours, and that light travels at the speed of sound in the high
- magical field, then the sun is actually orbiting the Disc at twice
- the speed of its own light.
- * When Rincewind meets Death in Ankh-Morpork, in _The_
- Colour_Of_Magic_, people walk through Death. Whereas later on,
- people are described as avoiding him.
- * In TCOM, Death kills a fly. The Death from Mort and later books
- would never do such a thing - it changes reality.
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 6.6 Appearances
-
- Book signings:
-
- November, 1992
- Wed 11: Evening event with Richmond Library.
- Thu 12: 1-2pm Waterstones, 1063/4/7 Whitgift Centre,
- Croydon.
- Fri 13: 1-2pm John Menzies, 56 Old Broad Street,
- London.
- Sat 14: 12-1pm Forbidden Planet, 71 New Oxford Street,
- London.
- Tue 17: Evening event at Cambridge Union Society.
- Wed 18: 1-2pm Heffers Paperback Shop, 31 St Andrews St,
- Cambridge.
- Thu 19: 12.30-1.30pm Bookland, 288 High Street,
- Bangor, Gwynedd.
- 7-8pm Talk and signing at The English Dept
- University College of North Wales
- College Road, Bangor.
- Fri 20: 12.30-1.30pm: Waterstones, 43-45 Bridge Street
- Row, Chester, Cheshire CH1 1NW.
- Sat 21: 10.30-11.30am Andromeda, 84 Suffolk Street,
- Birmingham.
- 2.30-3.30pm W H Smith, 29 Union Street,
- Birmingham.
- Mon 23: 1-2pm Waterstones, 104-108 Grey Street,
- Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
- Tue 24: 12.30-1.30PM Waterstones, 132 Union Street,
- Glasgow.
- Wed 25: 11am-12noon Waterstones, 236 Union Street,
- Aberdeen.
- 4-5pm James Thin (spelling?)
- 7-8 High Street
- Dundee.
- Thu 26: 12.30-1.30pm Waterstones, 13-14 Princes Street,
- Edinburgh.
-
- December 1992
- Fri? 4: 12.30-1.30 Volume 1, the Queensmere Shopping Centre,
- Slough.
-
- Cons:
-
- Hillcon -- Rotterdam, November 27-29 1992.
- Swancon - Perth, Australia Easter 1993 (and MAYBE another swift few
- days on the East coast like this year)
- Finncon - Helsinki, August 93
- Orycon - Portland, Oregon, November 1993
-
- ----------------------------------------
- 6.7 The Hedgehog Song
-
- It would appear that there was a Hedgehog song around the '20s, if not
- before, with the same refrain as the Discworld song. However, Terry
- says "since I doubt it ever could have been in print, I can bravely
- plead parallel evolution at most. There is a certain, how shall I put
- it, natural cadence to the words."
-
- ----------------------------------------
- Credits
-
- Nathan Torkington (gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz), Adrian N Ogden
- (ano@uk.ac.rdg.cs.csres), Vicky White, PR James
- (prj91@ecs.soton.ac.uk), Adrian Waterworth
- (Adrian.Waterworth@newcastle.ac.uk), Chris Stratford
- (cs@ib.cc.rl.ac.uk), Steven Ellis (steven@XDML2.ico.olivetti.com),
- Lesley Walker (lesley@phobos.actrix.gen.nz) Leo Breebaart
- (leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl), Darkstar (pmygdk@mips.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk)
- Harry Broomhall (haeb@demon.co.uk), Jonathan Lennox
- (jml12@cunixca.cc.columbia.edu), Martin V. Walser
- (mvw@anywhere.umd.edu), Melanie Dymond (mdymond@isis.cs.du.edu), All
- The Madmen (9021147K@Levels.UniSA.Edu.Au), Daniel Veditz
- (daniel@borland.com), Dhanesh (dks@Athena.MIT.EDU), D.J.T.
- (dtrindle@jarthur.Claremont.EDU), Carl Edman
- (cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu), Jerzy Michal Pawlak
- (PAWLAK@vxdesy.desy.de), Michael Norrish (mnorrish@comp.vuw.ac.nz),
- Terry Pratchett (tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk), Malcolm Mladenovic
- (mbm@dsbc.icl.co.uk), Klaus Kluge (klaus@inphobox.w.open.de), D N Crow
- (daniel@scs.leeds.ac.uk), Andrew Conway (arc@mundoe.maths.mu.oz.au),
- Jan van 't Ent (vantent@cvx.eur.nl), Simon Read
- (segr@nessie.mcc.ac.uk), Ralf E. Stranzenbach (ralf@reswi.en.open.de),
- Mark Cook (markc@unipalm.co.uk), G. Wilde (no net access), Kai Siering
- (wusel@lime.in-berlin.de), Paul M Schwartz (pms@acsu.buffalo.edu),
- Mike Kerstetter (msk@espresso.boeing.com), Martin Carstensen
- (cash@infko.uni-doblenz.de), John Rickard (jrickard@eoe.co.uk), Paul
- Ashley (pashley@sdcc13.ucsd.edu), Matthew Duhan
- (mduhan@husc10.harvard.edu).
- Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu comp.lang.prolog:6766 news.answers:4636
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog,news.answers
- Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!news.bbn.com!usc!sdd.hp.com!caen!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!fornax!jamie
- From: jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie Andrews)
- Subject: comp.lang.prolog Frequently Asked Questions
- Message-ID: <prolog/faq-1-724500003@cs.sfu.ca>
- Followup-To: comp.lang.prolog
- Summary: Information about free Prolog implementations; contact names for commercial systems; controversial topics.
- Supersedes: <prolog/faq-1-723204003@cs.sfu.ca>
- Reply-To: jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie Andrews)
- Organization: Logic Programming Lab, Computer Science, Simon Fraser University
- Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 10:00:10 GMT
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
- Expires: 01/03/93
- Lines: 309
-
- Posted-By: auto-faq script
- Archive-name: prolog/faq
-
- Original-by: jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie Andrews)
- Version: 1.8
- Last-modified: 10/15/92 by jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie Andrews)
-
- This article contains the answers to some Frequently Asked
- Questions (FAQ) often seen in comp.lang.prolog. It is posted
- (twice a month) to help reduce volume in this newsgroup and to
- provide hard-to-find information of general interest.
-
- This article includes answers to the following questions.
-
- 0. General information
- 1. What is the Association for Logic Programming?
- 2. Where can I get a public-domain, free Prolog for (the IBM PC,
- the Mac, Unix)?
- 3. What commercial systems are available?
- 4. How do I get in touch with my Prolog's users' group,
- sales representative, or technical support line?
- 5. I think language X is better than Prolog. What do you think?
- 6. My Prolog prof assigned me this problem. Can you help
- me with it?
- 7. Can you suggest some books on Prolog?
- 8. Are there any FTP archive sites for comp.lang.prolog?
-
- Please forward suggestions for further questions and
- answers to the current FAQ maintainer, jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie
- Andrews).
-
- Changes in this version:
- * Added information on archive sites (question 8).
- * Added information on UPMAIL Tricia Prolog for the Mac.
- * Updated information on the Prolog Resource Guide.
- * Added contact address for the Prolog-2 Users' Group.
- * Added information on ALF (Algebraic Logic Functional language).
-
- * * *
-
- 0. General information
-
- The newsgroup "comp.lang.prolog" discusses the language
- Prolog and other "logic programming" languages. Logic
- programming languages, in general, are programming languages
- which incorporate some of the language of mathematical logic;
- unification and backtracking search are common operational
- features. For more background information about Prolog, see the
- list of books in Question 7 of this list.
-
- * * *
-
- 1. What is the Association for Logic Programming?
-
- To keep up with the current state of logic programming
- technology, readers can join the Association for Logic
- Programming (ALP) and receive their Newsletter. For details on
- how to join, contact:
-
- Cheryl Anderson,
- ALP Administrative Secretary,
- Dept. of Computing,
- Imperial College,
- 180 Queen's Gate,
- London, SW7 2BZ, UK
-
- Email: csa@doc.ic.ac.uk
- Fax: +44 71 589 1552
- Phone: +44 71 589 5111 x5011
-
- The Prolog Resource Guide (v0.6) was printed in issue 5/1
- of the Newsletter (Feb. 1992). This lists information concerning
- Prolog Archives, Books, Suppliers, etc. It is now maintained by
- Mark Kantrowitz (Mark.Kantrowitz@GLINDA.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU), and
- posted periodically to comp.lang.prolog.
-
- To send in Newsletter contributions, write to:
-
- Andrew Davison,
- Dept. of Computer Science,
- University of Melbourne,
- Parkville,
- Melbourne, Victoria 3052,
- AUSTRALIA
-
- Email: ad@cs.mu.oz.au
- Fax: +61 3 348 1184
- Phone: +61 3 344 7207 / 5230
- Telex: AA 35185
-
- * * *
-
- 2. Where can I get a public-domain, free Prolog for (the IBM PC,
- the Mac, Unix)?
-
- The following are anonymous-FTP sites for free Prologs
- which are either in the public domain or are "copy-lefted"
- (permitted to be copied with some restrictions on commercial use).
-
- (Please note that for extensive development work, users
- will probably want a robust interpreter or compiler with good
- debugging facilities and a standard syntax, among other things.
- While public-domain systems are a valuable service to the
- community, they do not necessarily have all these things, and
- users should weigh carefully what they want to do against the
- capabilities and costs of the available systems.)
-
- For the IBM PC:
- - BinProlog 1.39, anonymous FTP from clement.info.umoncton.ca
- (139.103.16.2), directory BinProlog. Compiler for IBM PC 386.
- E-mail: tarau@info.umoncton.ca (Paul Tarau).
- - Anonymous FTP from aisun1.ai.uga.edu, directory ai.prolog;
- download "Contents" first. Two systems.
- E-mail: mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu (Michael Covington).
- - SWI Prolog, anonymous FTP from swi.psy.uva.nl (192.42.96.1),
- directory pub/SWI-Prolog; or from ftp.th-darmstadt.de
- (130.83.55.75), directory pub/programming/languages/prolog.
- Portable, copy-lefted.
-
- For the Apple Macintosh:
- - Anonymous FTP from aisun1.ai.uga.edu, directory ai.prolog;
- download "Contents" first.
- E-mail: mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu (Michael Covington).
- - Open Prolog, anonymous FTP from grattan.cs.tcd.ie (or
- 134.226.32.15), directory languages/open-prolog. In
- binhex/stuffit form.
- E-mail: brady@cs.tcd.ie (Michael Brady).
- - UPMAIL Tricia Prolog, anonymous FTP from ftp.csd.uu.se
- (130.238.12.1), directory pub/Tricia; get README first.
- Email: tricia-request@csd.uu.se.
-
-
- For Unix systems:
- - BinProlog 1.39, anonymous FTP from clement.info.umoncton.ca
- (139.103.16.2), directory BinProlog. Compiler for SPARC and Sun/3.
- E-mail: tarau@info.umoncton.ca (Paul Tarau).
- - SWI Prolog, anonymous FTP from swi.psy.uva.nl (192.42.96.1),
- directory pub/SWI-Prolog; or from ftp.th-darmstadt.de
- (130.83.55.75), directory pub/programming/languages/prolog.
- Portable, copy-lefted.
- - SB-Prolog, anonymous FTP from cs.arizona.edu, directory
- "sbprolog/v3". Version 3. Copy-lefted.
- - Modular SB-Prolog (= SB-Prolog version 3.1 plus modules),
- anonymous FTP from ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk (129.215.160.5), file
- pub/dts/mod-prolog.tar.Z . Interpreter for SPARC.
- E-mail: mprolog@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Brian Paxton).
- - ALF (Algebraic Logic Functional language), WAM-based language
- with narrowing/rewriting, anonymous FTP from ftp.germany.eu.net,
- directory "pub/programming/languages/LogicFunctional".
- E-mail: opalla@julien.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rudolf Opalla).
-
-
- * * *
-
- 3. What commercial systems are available?
-
- Many commercial systems are listed in the periodically
- posted Prolog Resource Guide. The list of commercial systems
- was compiled by Chris Moss, of Imperial College. The rest of
- the Resource Guide was originally compiled by Dag Wahlberg, of
- Uppsala University.
-
- The Resource Guide is now maintained by the kind efforts
- of Mark Kantrowitz, "Mark.Kantrowitz@GLINDA.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU", who
- posts it periodically on comp.lang.prolog.
-