Systems for programming and graphic design

• The Mozart Programming System
  • Systems supported: Many Unix platforms, Windows 95/98/NT
  • Developers:
    • DFKI, UdS, and SFB 378 (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and Universität des Saarlandes)
    • SICS (Swedish Institute of Computer Science)
    • UCL (Université catholique de Louvain)
  • Mozart 1.0 is a major new development platform for open fault-tolerant distributed applications, constraint programming applications, and logic programming applications. The platform includes a full-fledged development environment with many tools and extensive documentation including tutorials. Applications developed include a collaborative graphic editor (TransDraw), an extended version of ICQ (MIM), a corpus browser, a real-time bus scheduler, a configuration tool, and much more. The platform is released with a very liberal license (X11-style) that allows both commercial and non-commercial use. Full source code is available.
  • Mozart 1.0 implements the Oz 3 language, which is almost completely upward-compatible with its predecessor Oz 2 (see DFKI Oz 2.0). The main extensions are functors (a kind of software component) and futures (for improved dataflow behavior). Oz 2 is itself a successor to the original Oz 1 language, whose implementation was first released publicly in 1995.
• DFKI Oz 2.0 is a programming system designed for applications that require complex symbolic computations, organization into multiple agents, and soft real-time control. Oz is a concurrent object-oriented language that is state-aware and that has dataflow synchronization. Oz has been developed at the DFKI and the Universität des Saarlandes in the Programming Systems Laboratory, headed by Gert Smolka. The first public release was in January 1995. My main contribution to centralized Oz is the implementation of record constraints and dictionaries as documented in Integrating Efficient Records into Concurrent Constraint Programming (170K).
• Logical State Threads is a package for SICStus Prolog and compatible systems that simplifies the development of large Prolog programs. A beta version has been released in January 1997. The package was designed by Andreas Kagedal, Peter Van Roy and Bruno Dumant, and written mostly by Andreas Kagedal. The package subsumes the Wild_Life and Extended DCG packages. It is a cleaned up version of the Wild_Life package for Prolog. It includes powerful operators for scoping and composition of accumulators. This makes it especially useful for the practical development of large, declarative ("pure") programs in Prolog.
• Wild_LIFE (UCL archive, DEC archive) is the first complete implementation of the LIFE language, a successor to Prolog. The Wild_LIFE interpreter was developed by Peter Van Roy, Richard Meyer, and Jean-Claude Hervé (in LIFE and C). The first public release was in December 1992. Version 1.01 was released in April 1994. See LIFE for more information, including more recent releases. PostScript User Manual (700K).
• FractaSketch is a commercial drawing tool for Macintosh based on linear fractal geometry (US Patent 5,831,633). It was developed by Peter Van Roy (in C and assembly). FractaSketch allows the graphic designer to design highly complex images by direct manipulation (no equations!) and goes way beyond Mandelbrot-based globular goop. The program was used in 1994 by clothing designer Jhane Barnes for her line of men's fashions, and in 1999 by Ron Eglash in his book African Fractals. Version 2.03, a powerful extension (with color, linking, editing, and many beautiful original images), is complete and available as freeware. Colorful sample design (180K).
• Aquarius Prolog is one of the world's highest-performance Prolog systems and the first system whose core performance rivals good implementations of C on a significant set of programs. Aquarius was developed by Peter Van Roy, Ralph Haygood, and Tom Getzinger (in Prolog, C, and assembly) for Unix platforms. The first public release was in April 1993. At its release it was the world's fastest Prolog system. It contains all Edinburgh built-ins and does global analysis. Release 1.0 is available free of charge by sending a message with empty subject and body get aquarius-info license to listserv@acal-server.usc.edu. PostScript User Manual (790K). Foundation of Aquarius Prolog. In its current state, the system has a full complement of built-ins (Quintus-compatible), is available free with full source code, but is no longer being maintained.
• Dynamic Software is a software company dedicated to innovative artistic, mathematical, and educational software. The company was founded by Bernt Wahl and Peter Van Roy in 1987 and has since nurtured a growing group of enthusiasts. Dynamic Software has its origins in the scientific and computer communities at UC Santa Cruz and Berkeley. The main focus of the group is to use the computer as a tool for creative endeavors. Ongoing projects include math and science education and tools for graphic design. We welcome outside collaboration.
• Elf Forth is a high-performance Forth compiler for the CDP180X microprocessor family. This was done long ago while I was still young and green. Now I am less young but still green and still building systems.