Re: upper and lower case

[CSVAX.jkf at Berkeley]

   Could  someone  tell  me  why Maclisp and Lisp Machine lisp allow only upper
case  printnames for symbols? My guess is that Maclisp does it because it saves
space, but why does Lisp Machine lisp do it? Are there Lisp Machines with upper
case  only keyboards? Does the Lisp Machine use upper case only because Maclisp
does? What about Multics Maclisp, does that allow both cases in printnames? And
finally, will Nil be a single case lisp system too?
   I  ask these questions for two reasons, one is that I am simply curious. The
other  is  that  Dave  Barton (drb) has written a symbolic algebra system which
requires  a  two  case Lisp system. Dave follows the mathematical convention of
using  upper case names to denote sets (like Z for the integers) and lower case
to  denote  variables  (like  z).  In  order  to  run Dave's code on any of the
aforementioned Lisp's we will have to do something ugly, like translating upper
case characters like Z to *Z.
   I think that the use of upper and lower case adds a third dimension to print
names.  I  would  call  names  which  are  restricted to a single character one
dimensional  names  (such is the case in many Basic [ugh] systems). By allowing
the names to be any length you add a second dimension. Finally by allowing both
cases you get the third dimension.
   Finally,  a lisp system with both case capability can easily masquerade as a
single case system.
 
 ::: jkf :::