
                       The Isabelle System Distribution
                                       
Version information

   This is _Isabelle-94 revision 8_ 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
   NEWS file in the distribution for a more detailed list of new features
   and changes.
   
System requirements

   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.
   
   Furthermore, it needs the following software, which is not part of the
   distribution:
     * A full Standard ML Compiler (e.g. Poly/ML or SML of New Jersey).
     * The GNU bash shell (version 1.x or 2.x).
     * Perl 5.x - the Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.
       
   The ML system and GNU bash are absolutely essential. Perl is optional
   for core functionality, but still highly recommended.
   
   The following ML system and platform combinations are known to work
   quite well:
     * Poly/ML versions 2.x and 3.1 on Suns.
     * SML/NJ 0.93 on Suns and SGIs. There seem to be several problems
       with Linux and HP-UX.
     * SML/NJ 1.07 on Suns, Linux, etc.
     * SML/NJ 1.09.27 and 1.09.28 on Suns, Linux, etc.
       
   [1]Poly/ML 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).
   
   SML/NJ needs lots of store and disk space, but it is [2]free. 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
   [3]available. 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).
   
Installation

   See file INSTALL in the Isabelle sources on how to build the system.
   Further background information may be found in the _Isabelle System
   Manual_, distributed as dvi with the sources.
   
Interfaces

   The distribution includes only a very primitive interface based on
   ordinary terminal sessions.
   
   David Aspinall has written a more elaborate [4]user interface for
   Isabelle. It runs under recent versions of GNU Emacs and XEmacs, the
   latter being recommended. It's useful to both novices and experts.
   
Other sources of information

  Mailing list
  
   The electronic mailing list isabelle-users@cl.cam.ac.uk provides a
   forum for Isabelle users to discuss problems and exchange information.
   To join, send a message to isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk.
   
  Personal mail
  
   [5]Lawrence C Paulson
   Computer Laboratory
   University of Cambridge
   Pembroke Street
   Cambridge CB2 3QG
   England
   
   E-mail: lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk
   Phone: +44-223-334600
   Fax: +44-223-334748
   
   or
   
   [6]Tobias Nipkow
   Institut fuer Informatik
   T. U. Muenchen
   D-80290 Muenchen
   Germany
   
   E-mail: nipkow@informatik.tu-muenchen.de
   Phone: +49-89-289-22690
   Fax: +49-89-289-28183
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   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.
     _________________________________________________________________

References

   1. http://www.ahl.co.uk/poly-ml.html
   2. http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/what/smlnj/software.html
   3. http://www4.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~wenzelm/resources.html
   4. ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/da/Isamode.tar.gz
   5. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/lcp/
   6. http://www4.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~nipkow/
