The first issue of the Icon Newsletter appeared more than 20 years ago. It announced the availability of Icon for the CDC 6000/CYBER and the DECsystem-10.
Subsequent issues of the Newsletter covered a variety of topics ranging from implementation to programming to user applications. When the Icon Analyst started in 1990, some of the subjects formerly covered by the Newsletter moved to the Analyst.
In recent years, as the Icon language and its implementation matured, there has been less material for the Newsletter.
At the same time, the wide availability of the Web has made it possible to publish news in a timely fashion.
The Newsletter has served its purpose and run its course. The next issue, scheduled for June 2000, will be the last.
The first five years of the Icon Analyst (August 1990 - June 1995) are now available on-line in PDF format. You'll find links to them at http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/analyst/iaback.htm.
Version 9.3.2 of Icon for UNIX, and Version 9.3.2 of the Icon program library, are now available from the Icon web site:
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/v93u.htm (Icon for UNIX)
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/ipl93.htm (Icon program library)
Source code is available for Icon and for the library. Binaries of Icon are available for several common UNIX platforms. Precompiled ucode files of the library procedures are also available.
For the Icon source code, this is primarily a maintenance release. The code has been reworked and simplified to increase portability. An ANSI C compiler is now required, and UNIX systems are expected to supply a POSIX (1003.1-1988) library. This new source release is sufficiently portable that it also builds on the Be operating system (see www.be.com), albeit without graphics.
Version 9.3.2 adds one new feature to Icon: The files in a directory can be listed by opening the directory as a file. Subsequent reads return the names of the files contained in the directory. The names are returned in no particular order, and for UNIX, the directories . and .. are included.
The program library update reflects all the changes that have accumulated since the release of Version 9.3.1 in December of 1997, and it includes several new programs, procedures, and packages.
A new technical report describes the Jcon implementation in detail:
Todd A. Proebsting and Gregg M. TownsendThe report describes in detail the Jcon compiler and its object-oriented run-time system.
A New Implementation of the Icon Language
The Jcon package, program library, and technical report can be downloaded from the Jcon web page at http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/jcon/.
Steve Waldo has updated DOS Icon. It consists of two modules:
The console version has the advantage of handling Windows 95's long file names, but obviously cannot run under pure DOS -- only in a Windows 95 DOS box. The extended DOS version "feels" faster, but this has not been confirmed.
Both versions have the -A option of icont, which produces a stand-alone executable (the .icx file appended to a copy of iconx.exe). The modules are available from http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/ftp/binaries/msdos32/.
Dave Hanson, Ray Pereda and Todd Proebsting recently completed a new implementation of Icon at Microsoft Research. This implementation, "Minicon", implements all of Version 9 Icon except for graphics.
Minicon is implemented in C++, and its object-oriented run-time architecture is inspired by the Jcon implementation done at the University of Arizona. This architecture enables the easy addition of data types to the run-time system.
The implementation team is using Minicon for research into adding new data types to Icon.
Currently, there are no plans for making Minicon available outside of Microsoft.