[no subject]

[KMP at MIT-MC (Kent M. Pitman)]

I propose that on April Fool's Day of 1980 (approx 6 months hence) the
default I/O base of MacLISP be changed to 10. and *NOPOINT default to NIL.
This will have the following good effects:

(1) Output from a default environ to be readable back into any environ.
(2) New users will not be confused and scared off by funny default base.

There already exist read macros #O and #X in MacLISP for specifying a
number is to be read in Base-8 or Base-16 or whatever and I suggest we
start using these.

This amount of time should be enough time for the files that depend on
base to be ammended. 

Those of you who are really worried about contingencies should write
an SFA scheme that binds IBASE to 8 while reading files created before
some threshold date ...

NOTE: Ammending files should NOT mean changing the numbers to rely on base
	10, but rather to use the "." to force base 10 or use #O or #/ or
        whatever so that you don't rely on a default.

There should also be an effort organized to get at least a FILE-SETQ
and maybe a general FILE-EVAL working for people who just want to set
IBASE in a given file. I would also like to see
;;; -*- Mode:LISP; IBase:10. -*-
work correctly.

-kmp