11/4/71 - JONL - **** THERE ARE SOME NEW FUNCTIONS IN BOTH LISP AND NLISP. EXPLODEN IS LIKE EXPLODEC, EXCEPT THAT THE LIST OF ITEMS PRODUCED CONTAINS THE ASCII VALUES [AS FIXED-POINT NUMBERS] OF THE EXPLODED PARTS, INSTEAD OF SINGLE CHARACTER OBJECTS. PLUSP OPERATES SIMILARLY TO MINUSP. IF A RETURN IS EXECUTED AT THE TOP LEVEL OF A BREAK, [SEE PRIOR NOTES ON BREAK LOOPS] THEN THE BREAK WILL EXIT RETURNING THE GIVEN VALUE RATHER THAN THE DEFAULT VALUE AS DESCRIBED IN PRIOR NOTES. WHILE TYPING IN FROM A JOB CONSOLE OF THE DISPLAY TYPE, YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT TYPING CONTROL-L CLEARS THE SCREEN AND RETYPES THE CURRENT TTY INPUT BUFFER. YOU MAY NOW USE CONTROL-K TO MERELY DO A CARRIAGE-RETURN-LINE-FEED FOLLOWED BY A RETYPING OF THE TTY INPUT BUFFER. **** CONTRARY TO WHAT YOU MAY HAVE HEARD, THE LISP FUNCTION SET IS BACK WITH US AS AN ORDINARY OLD SUBR OF TWO ARGUMENTS. SETQ HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN FSUBR, AND HAS BEEN RECENTLY ACCEPTING MULTIPLE REQUESTS LIKE (SETQ A 1 B 2 C 3). CODE COMPILED FOR FUNCTIONS USING SET WILL NOT BE AFFECTED BY THIS CHANGE. **** IRA, JERRY LERMAN, AND I ARE DEVELOPING A SIMPLE, NEAT DISPLAY LANGUAGE FOR USE IN LISP. WE ENVISION USING THE PDP6 AS AN OFF-LINE DISPLAY PROCESSOR SO THAT ONE MAY OBTAIN HIGH-QUALITY IMAGES WITHOUT SLOWING DOWN THE TIME-SHARING SYSTEM. A PDP-10 ON-LINE VERSION OF THE PROCESSOR WILL BE USED WHEN THE 6 IS NOT AVAILABLE [FOR COMPATIBILITY], BUT OF COURSE THIS WILL CAUSE SOME DEGRADATION OF THE ITS PERFORMANCE. PERSONS WITH EITHER EXPERIENCE DESCRIBING VISUAL SCENES, DISPLAYS, GRAPHS, ETC., OR WITH STRONG IDEAS ON HOW TO DO SO EASILY, SHOULD SPEAK WITH US SOON. **** THE GOODIES ABOUT THE GARBAGE COLLECTOR MENTIONED IN THE LAST UPDATE NOTE [REGARDING INTERRUPT NUMBER 10. FOR CATCHING STORAGE SPACE CAPACITY EXCEEDED ERRORS] APPLIES TO LISP AS WELL AS NLISP. **** SOME BUGS IN THE BIGNUMBER INPUT ROUTINES HAVE BEEN REPAIRED, AS WELL AS SOME ANNOYING BUGS IN THE FLOATING-POINT PRINTOUT ROUTINE OF NLISP.