[newsletter masthead]

[dragon masthead]

No. 44 - March 15, 1994

Contents

ProIcon Now in Public Domain

The ProIcon Group has stopped marketing ProIcon for the Macintosh and has placed the product in the public domain.

For those of you who are not familiar with ProIcon, it is an enhanced version of Icon with a standard Macintosh interface. It provides an integrated environment in which you can enter, run, get on-line help, edit, and run again without leaving the application.

ProIcon supports all the features of Version 8.0 of Icon and also has many extensions, including ones specially designed for the Macintosh environment. ProIcon also can access HyperCard XCMDs and XFCNs. In addition to the application itself, there is a utility that provides an animated view of Icon's storage management.

ProIcon is 32-bit clean and runs under Versions 6.01 through 7.1 of the Macintosh operating system.

The source code, which contains proprietary components, is not available.

The 367-page ProIcon manual, whose cover is shown below, is available separately. This manual not only describes all the features of ProIcon, but it contains a complete reference manual for Icon's functions and operators.

[ProIcon manual cover]

Version 9 of Icon

Version 9 of Icon (previously referred to as Version 8.11) is nearly complete. This version will add a few new features to the basic part of the language and include extensive improvements to the graphics capabilities.

The graphics facilities have been revised to improve their portability as well as expanded in key areas. Specific changes for portability include color and font naming systems that work across platforms and a linear model for RBG color values. New functionality has been added for image creation and the GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is supported. Many minor changes have been made to improve the flexibility and consistency of the graphics functions. The most visible change is the removal of the "X" in the names of the functions. This change was made because the functions are no longer specific to X Window platforms and in many cases are different from or do not have direct X counterparts. The Icon program library includes backward-compatibility routines and an include file to convert from the old function names to the new ones.

The implementation of Version 9 also has been improved in several ways. The Icon linker now eliminates declarations (notably procedures) that are not referenced, often resulting in considerably smaller icode files, especially when library modules are linked. The UNIX version of the interpreter now uses shell headers for starting execution, substantially reducing the size of icode files on some platforms. The MS-DOS version of the interpreter now produces executable (.exe) files.

We expect Version 9 to be available sometime this summer for platforms that presently support Version 8.10. The OS/2, UNIX, and VMS implementations will support graphics capabilities.

Windows32, Windows NT, and Macintosh implementations with graphic capabilities are underway, although it is too soon to predict when they will be available.

SNOBOL4 Corner

[snow flake]

A C Implementation

The original "macro" implementation of SNOBOL4 was written in a specially crafted language called SIL (SNOBOL4 Implementation Language).

SIL has about 130 "operations" that previously have been implemented as assembly-language macros.

For years, there's been talk about a C implementation of SIL, but nothing has ever materialized -- until now.

Phil Budne has mastered the task. His implementation of SNOBOL4, which he has placed in the pubic domain, presently runs on several UNIX platforms, and other ports are in progress.

A beta version of his implementation is available via FTP from ftp.cs.arizona.edu in /snobol4/budne and alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu in /budne/snobol. There you will find, among other things,
	README.beta1	basic information
	beta1.tar.gz	UNIX beta release
Phil Budne can be reached at budd@cs.bu.edu.

Graphics Programming Book

As some of you know, we're writing a book on graphics programming in Icon. The current cover design is:

[graphics programming book cover]

This book will provide not only a complete description of Icon's graphics facilities, but also how to program with them and how to build applications with graphic interfaces.

The tentative contents are:
		Part 1 -- Background

	1.  Introduction
	2.  Icon Basics

		Part 2 -- Graphics Programming

	3.  Graphics
	4.  Drawing
	5.  Text
	6.  Interaction
	7.  Color
	8.  Windows
	9.  Images
	10. Turtle Graphics
	11. User Interfaces

		Part 3 -- Example Applications

	12. A Pattern Editor
	13. Facial Caricatures
Appendices will include a reference manual for functions and operations, details about color palettes, and platform-specific information.

We expect the book to be substantially complete in draft by the end of the summer. We may delay publication, however, until we've had a chance to "field test" it in a course on graphics programming.

Thank You

Once again, we'd like to thank those of you who have made contributions to the Icon Project. This support has been very helpful in enabling us to continue to provide service to the Icon community.

Although Icon is in the public domain and is not shareware, you can think of contributions to the Icon Project much in the way you would paying for shareware. If you work for a company and would like to have your company make a payment of this kind, we can provide an invoice; just tell us how much and where to send it.

Uploading Files

If you have files that you want to send to the Icon project, you can upload them to us using FTP. Do an anonymous FTP to cs.arizona.edu and cd /incoming, where you can put files.

If you do this, be sure to send an e-mail message to icon-project@cs.arizona.edu telling us that you've uploaded files, what they contain, and what their names are. Do this promptly, because uploaded files are automatically deleted after a few days.

Language Archives

As we've mentioned in past Newsletters, we have extensive archives of material related to the SNOBOL and Icon programming languages -- everything from correspondence and technical reports to memorabilia like T-shirts.

We'd like to thank Bob Goldberg for arranging the contribution of material related to the Spitbol version of SNOBOL4 from Dewar Information Systems Corporation.

We've made arrangements to transfer our archives to the Charles Babbage Institute, where they will be preserved and made available to scholars.

It probably will take years for us to transfer all of the material to CBI. Not only is a lot of work needed to organize our archives, but we're still using some of the material -- not to mention adding to it.

We'll have more to say about this in an upcoming Newsletter.

Icon Mug

In the last Newsletter, we casually mentioned the possibility of an Icon coffee mug. We didn't do anything about it (we are kept busy developing, implementing, documenting, and distributing Icon). Imagine our surprise when we got an Icon mug as a Christmas present.

The mug was from Bob Alexander, who has been a long-time member of the Icon "family". He is the implementor of the Macintosh MPW version of Icon and has made many of contributions to the Icon program library -- and some of the best, we should add.

Bob's son Rob, who manufactures custom mugs, did the Icon one using two Icon graphics. One is a version of the logo from the back of Newsletter 37 and the other is the Icon Rubik's cube from the back of Newsletter 39 but in the original color version with a gray cube on a blue background.

We may be biased, but in our opinion, it's the snazziest mug we've seen.

If you're a real Icon fan and want to own what is sure to be a collector's item, you can order an Icon mug for $15.95, which includes shipping, from
	Rob Alexander
	109 North Walnut Lane
	Schaumburg, IL  60194
Rob will personalize a mug at no extra cost with either a name of up to six characters, one uppercase and the rest lowercase, or four uppercase characters (for example, initials).

Checks should be made payable to Rob Alexander. Rob isn't set up for credit card orders and can handle only domestic orders, with apologies to the international Icon community.

[from our mail logo]

From Our Mail

I hesitate to mention this, but why haven't you increased your prices for Icon material? They seem to be about the same as they were several years ago. Except for books, but I realize you can't control the prices for them. It seems to me, since you've mentioned financial problems, that you could raise your prices a little.

It's our policy to raise prices only when our costs go up. We're not in this to make a profit, and we try to keep Icon as affordable as we can. And, as you noted, book prices are not under our control. As we've mentioned before, the publisher of one of the books routinely raises its price "in anticipation of inflation". As to raising the prices we charge for other Icon material, we admit it's tempting, but it's not clear to us that the Icon Project would get more total income as a result. We'd prefer to try to increase our income in other ways, such as encouraging more subscriptions to the Analyst, the program library, and source-code updates.

In a recent Newsletter you said OS/2 Icon supports the X-Icon features. Does this mean that I have to have X Window System running under OS/2 to use Icon's graphic features.

No. Icon graphics features just require Presentation Manager under OS/2. The "X" in our nomenclature dates to the time when Icon's graphics features only ran under X. Since that's no longer true, we're dropping the confusing "X", both in describing the language and in the names of the graphics functions.

I'm interested in back issues of the Analyst but only on specific topics. Can you send me a list of the issues and the topics covered and some idea of how big each article is (I wouldn't want to bother with a two-paragraph note).

A list of the contents of back issues of the Analyst is available by FTP to our site in /icon/doc/iatoc.txt and in a corresponding place on our RBBS. We also send printed copies on request. Articles in the Analyst generally run from two to five pages. You can tell the approximate length of an article from the page numbers given in the contents.

Frequently Asked Questions

See our Web faq page.

Ordering Icon Material

For information about ordering Icon program material and documentation, check out ordering instructions. An order form also is available.

[back cover]

© Copyright 1994 by Madge T. Griswold and Ralph E. Griswold. All rights reserved.
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