Amaze for Algernon
Amaze is a graphical browser for Algernon. It is written in Java and
interacts with the LISP environment. It was released in March, 1997 and
so far has only been tested on Sun and Linux machines using Allegro CL v4.3.
Amaze is loaded by "algy.lisp".
Amaze features:
- Display frames from the knowledge base.
- Browse a hierarchy of frames by following one relation.
- Reset and reload the KB.
- Load user files.
- Execute any LISP command.
- Set the trace level or trace a specific rule.
- Run examples.
To run Amaze, execute the function (amaze). Amaze has some built-in
help files to assist you in navigating the knowledge base.
Using Amaze
When Amaze is running it is the frontmost process, so any LISP commands execute
within its scope. This can cause problems during program development when
a function breaks. If you exit from the break by doing a :RESET, it
also exits Amaze and the interface is no longer functional.
A better way to handle a break is to find the topmost ASK or TELL on the
program stack (use :ZOOM to display the stack and :DN to go down to the appropriate
stack frame) and return a value, say T, from it using :RETURN.
Amaze could run in the background, but Algernon functions that ask questions of the
user do not work correctly. LISP does not synchronize the input
and output from multiple processes well.
[Algernon v3 home]
This page was created by
Micheal Hewett