Moving from a Symbolics to an Explorer.

[cerys@BBN.COM (Dan Cerys)]

   Date: Tue, 14 Aug 90 10:29 PDT
   From: "Robert D. Pfeiffer" <RDP@alan.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com>

   On the question "What tape format would be best to use?":

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       Date: Fri, 10 Aug 90 13:12 PDT
       From: snicoud@atc.boeing.com (Stephen L. Nicoud)

       The Explorer can read Symbolics carry tapes or UNIX TAR tapes.
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       Date: Fri, 10 Aug 90 15:53 EDT
       From: barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)

       At the time the companies were founded I don't think there was a Lispm
       tape format, so this could be tricky.  There may be a utility to read
       Symbolics carry tapes; ask your TI sales rep.  If not, they can probably
       read tar tapes, and Genera 8.0 can write ASCII files to tar tapes.
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   Clearly, having both machines on the same network for a period of time
   would be very desirable.  Assuming that this is not possible and
   therefore I must use a tape, am I in deep water in only having
   microExplorers (as opposed to "regular Explorers") at the target site?
   If so, might the best option be to use Suns (which may exist at both
   sites) as an intermediary?

You need a common physical format for the tape drives at each end of the
transfer.  The MicroExplorer probably has one of those tape drives that
takes those little-bitty tapes (that XL400/MacIvory/MicroExplorer/Macs
use).  TAR format on the physical media is handled by Genera, Explorers,
MacOS, and of course UNIX.  Like Genera, the Explorer handles heterogeneous
file servers fine, so you're free to use a UNIX NFS server at either site.

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       Date: Fri, 10 Aug 90 13:12 PDT
       From: snicoud@atc.boeing.com (Stephen L. Nicoud)

       Poor debugger support on TI. Local variables in a frame are only accessible by
       calling some strange function (EH-LOC, etc).
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   This surprises me as I thought that this functionality existed at MIT.
   Do others find the debugger poor?

Since I seldom write buggy code, I guess I don't find the debugger that
bad. :-).  Lexical variables (incl args) aren't available by name, but the
locals are readily available using the other techniques common to Genera
(eg M-C-L).  The debugger is basically the same; the notable exceptions are
source code locators and (most important to me) presentation-based
displays.  

Dan