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<h1>The Isabelle System Distribution</h1>
<h2>Version information</h2>
This is <strong>Isabelle-94 revision 8</strong> as of May
1997. Basically, it should be backwards compatible to earlier
Isabelle-94 releases. Older versions (like Isabelle-93) are quite
different, though. See also the <tt>NEWS</tt> file in the distribution
for a more detailed list of new features and changes.
<h2>System requirements</h2>
Isabelle requires a real Unix box with sufficient resources. Fun
starts at about 32MB of memory (somewhat depending on your ML system),
several tens of MB disk space and with a relatively fast CPU.
<p>
Furthermore, it needs the following software, which is not part of the
distribution:
<ul>
<li> A full Standard ML Compiler (e.g. Poly/ML or SML of New Jersey).
<li> The GNU bash shell (version 1.x or 2.x).
<li> Perl 5.x - the Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.
</ul>
The ML system and GNU bash are absolutely essential. Perl is optional
for core functionality, but still highly recommended.
<p>
The following ML system and platform combinations are known to work
quite well:
<ul>
<li> Poly/ML versions 2.x and 3.1 on Suns.
<li> SML/NJ 0.93 on Suns and SGIs. There seem to be several
problems with Linux and HP-UX.
<li> SML/NJ 1.09.27 or later on Suns, Linux, etc.
</ul>
<p>
<a href="http://www.ahl.co.uk/poly-ml.html">Poly/ML</a> is a
commercial product and costs money, but it is stable and efficient. It
requires relatively little memory (starting at about 16MB) and disk
space (about 40MB for all distributed object logics).
<p>
SML/NJ needs lots of store and disk space, but it is <a
href="http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/what/smlnj/software.html">free</a>.
The last official release is 0.93. Recent working versions may be
better suited, under normal circumstances. Beware of the many
incompatibilities among SML/NJ versions! From the 1.09.x family, we
now only support 1.09.27, or later. An unofficial pre-built binary
distribution of at least SML/NJ 1.09.27 for Linux is also <a
href="http://www4.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~wenzelm/resources.html">available.</a>
If you have to re-build SML/NJ 1.09.x yourself from the sources, just
comment out all targets except "sml" (cf. the installation
instructions of the SML/NJ distribution).
<h2>Installation</h2>
See file <tt>INSTALL</tt> in the Isabelle sources on how to build the
system. Further background information may be found in the
<em>Isabelle System Manual</em>, distributed as <tt>dvi</tt> with the
sources.
<h2>Interfaces</h2>
The distribution includes only a very primitive interface based on
ordinary terminal sessions.<p>
David Aspinall has written a more elaborate <a
href="ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/da/Isamode.tar.gz">user interface</a>
for Isabelle. It runs under recent versions of GNU Emacs and XEmacs,
the latter being recommended. It's useful to both novices and
experts.
<h2>Other sources of information</h2>
<h3>Mailing list</h3>
The electronic mailing list <tt>isabelle-users@cl.cam.ac.uk</tt>
provides a forum for Isabelle users to discuss problems and exchange
information. To join, send a message to
<tt>isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk</tt>.
<h3>Personal mail</h3>
<a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/lcp/">Lawrence C Paulson</a><br>
Computer Laboratory<br>
University of Cambridge<br>
Pembroke Street<br>
Cambridge CB2 3QG<br>
England<br>
<br>
E-mail: lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk<br>
Phone: +44-223-334600<br>
Fax: +44-223-334748<br>
<p>
or
<p>
<a href="http://www4.informatik.tu-muenchen.de:80/~nipkow/">Tobias Nipkow</a><br>
Institut fuer Informatik<br>
T. U. Muenchen<br>
D-80290 Muenchen<br>
Germany<br>
<br>
E-mail: nipkow@informatik.tu-muenchen.de<br>
Phone: +49-89-289-22690<br>
Fax: +49-89-289-28183<br>
<p>
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Please report any problems you encounter. While we shall try to be
helpful, we can accept no responsibility for the deficiences of
Isabelle and their consequences.
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