
                       The Isabelle System Distribution
                                       
Version information

   This is Isabelle99-1: October 2000. The current line of Isabelle99
   development introduces many new concepts, while attempting to keep
   incompatibilities over Isabelle98 at a minimum. See the NEWS file in
   the distribution for more details.
   
System requirements

   Isabelle requires a real Unix box with sufficient resources. Fun
   starts at about 32-64 MB of free main memory (somewhat depending on
   the ML system), with several tens of MB disk space and a decent CPU.
   Speaking by today's hardware standards, any moderate Linux box should
   give a very nice platform for Isabelle.
   
   Furthermore, Isabelle needs the following software, which is not part
   of the distribution:
     * A full Standard ML Compiler (e.g. Poly/ML).
     * The GNU bash shell (version 1.x or 2.x).
     * Perl 5.x - the Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister (Perl 4.x is
       not sufficient).
       
   The following ML system and platform combinations are known to work
   very well:
     * Poly/ML 3.x on Linux/x86 and Solaris/Sparc.
     * SML/NJ 110.x on any Unix platform (Linux, Suns, SGI etc.).
       
   [1]Poly/ML, previously a commercial product, is back in the free
   world. It is by far the best compiler for running Isabelle, requiring
   the least memory and offering the highest performance.
   
   [2]SML/NJ needs lots of store and disk space, but supports many more
   platforms. The current official release is 110. Basically, we still
   support the old 0.93 release, but do not recommend to use it under
   normal circumstances.
   
   MLWorks is a commercial ML programming environment developed by
   [3]Harlequin and was unfortunately withdrawn after that company was
   taken over. Isabelle on MLWorks 2.0 works reasonably well. It is about
   20% faster than on SML/NJ while using slightly less memory and disk
   space. A few features (e.g. ML top-level pretty printing) are not
   supported, though.
   
Installation

   Binary packages are available for Isabelle/HOL and ZF on the Linux/x86
   platform. The system may be easily built from scratch as well, taking
   the traditional tar.gz source distribution. See file INSTALL as
   distributed with Isabelle for more information. Further background
   information may be found in the Isabelle System Manual, distributed
   with the sources (directory doc).
   
User interface

   The canonical Isabelle user interface is [4]Proof General by David
   Aspinall and others. It is a generic (X)Emacs interface for proof
   assistants, including Isabelle (both for the classic and Isar
   version). Proof General is suitable for use by pacifists and Emacs
   militants alike. Its most prominent feature is script management,
   providing a metaphor of live proof script editing. Proof General has
   recently gained a rather large following of both beginning and expert
   users of Isabelle.
   
   Proof~General may be used together with the Emacs [5]X-Symbol package,
   which provides a nice way to get proper mathematical symbols displayed
   on screen.
   
Other sources of information

  The Isabelle Page
  
   The Isabelle home page may be accessed both from Cambridge and Munich:
     * [6]http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/
     * [7]http://isabelle.in.tum.de
       
  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 [8]isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk.
   
  Personal mail
  
   [9]Lawrence C Paulson
   Computer Laboratory
   University of Cambridge
   Pembroke Street
   Cambridge CB2 3QG
   England
   E-mail: [10]lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk
   Phone: +44-223-334600
   Fax: +44-223-334748
   
   or
   
   [11]Tobias Nipkow
   Institut fr Informatik
   T. U. Mnchen
   D-80290 Mnchen
   Germany
   E-mail: [12]nipkow@in.tum.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 deficiencies of
   Isabelle and their consequences.
     _________________________________________________________________

References

   1. http://www.polyml.org/
   2. http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/what/smlnj/software.html
   3. http://www.harlequin.com/
   4. http://www.proofgeneral.org/
   5. http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/~wedler/x-symbol/
   6. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/
   7. http://isabelle.in.tum.de/
   8. mailto:isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk
   9. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/lcp/
  10. mailto:lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk
  11. http://www.in.tum.de/~nipkow/
  12. mailto:nipkow@in.tum.de
