
Announcing the release of Yorick version 1.1, now available for UNIX
and MacIntosh platforms from several Internet archive sites.

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			  Yorick Version 1.1

What is Yorick?
---------------

Yorick is an interpreted language like Basic or Lisp.  For an interpreter,
Yorick is very fast for many scientific applications.  It features:

     * A C-like language, but without declarative statements.  Operations
       between arrays require no explicit loops, which accounts for
       Yorick's high speed.  Scientific computing and numerical analysis
       are the goals of most Yorick sessions.

     * An X window system interactive graphics package.  Concentrates on
       x-y plots and filling and contouring quadrilateral meshes.  Also
       handles cell arrays.  Hardcopy to binary CGM or PostScript files.
       Includes a separate CGM browser.  The MacIntosh version draws
       graphics to an ordinary Mac window and can write PICT files.

     * Yorick's binary file package can read or write floating point
       formats foreign to the machine where Yorick is running.  Thus,
       you can share binary files freely on heterogeneous networks.

     * A library of functions written in the Yorick language.  Includes
       Bessel, gamma, and related functions, multiple key sorting,
       spline, rational function, and least squares fitting, and routines
       to read and write netCDF files.

     * Provisions for embedding compiled subroutines and functions within
       a Yorick interpreter.  Includes a sample package which solves
       matrices and performs FFTs.

Because Yorick can read either text or binary files, it can be used
"out of the box" as a pre- and post-processor for most existing
physics simulation programs:

  As a pre-processor, you can write a Yorick program that produces
  complicated input files for a simulation.  These might be based on
  output from other programs, or might require evaluation of complicated
  functions or involve a lot of repetition.

  As a post-processor, Yorick allows you to compare the results of
  several simulations or to analyze results of a single simulation in
  ways you did not forsee when you ran it.

Also, developing a simulation code is considerably easier when you
have a tool like Yorick: If you plan to use Yorick to generate input
files, you don't need to fuss about making your input "user friendly";
if you plan to post-process with Yorick, your simulation code doesn't
need any graphics, and its output can be generally less flexible.

Finally, you can build special versions of Yorick to act as drivers
for your compiled routines.  An interpreted Yorick program can
generate input for your routine and plot its output.  A large modular
simulation code could be built by loading several such routines and
writing the main control loop as interpreted code.


Requirements
------------

You need an ANSI C compiler in order to build Yorick "as is".

The Yorick configure script knows about the following platforms:

     Sun SPARC   (SunOS or Solaris)
     HP PA-RISC  (HPUX)
     SGI         (IRIX)
     Cray Y/MP   (UNICOS)
     IBM RS6000  (AIX)
     DEC alpha   (OSF)
     Intel 80486 (Linux)

Other flavors of UNIX should present few problems.

A 99% complete port to the MacIntosh architecture exists.  This is
especially useful for sharing binary data between UNIX and Mac
platforms; not only can Yorick read data files, but analysis
algorithms written in the Yorick language can be used on either
platform.  The MacIntosh Yorick is distributed as executable binaries
in self-extracting archives.

Availability
------------

Yorick is available at the following archive sites:

     wuarchive.wustl.edu: /languages/yorick/yorick-1.1.tar.gz
     sunsite.unc.edu: /pub/languages/yorick/yorick-1.1.tar.gz
     sunsite.unc.edu: /pub/Linux/apps/math/matrix/yorick-1.1.tar.gz
     netlib.att.com: /netlib/env/yorick-1.1.tar.gz
     netlib2.cs.utk.edu: /env/yorick-1.1.tar.gz

The MacIntosh version of Yorick will soon become available at:

     sumex-aim.stanford.edu: /info-mac/dev/yorick-*

and its many mirrors (e.g.- ftp.uu.net:/archive/systems/mac/info-mac).

My home machine is not really equipped to be an archive, but if any
version of Yorick is there, it will be the current one.  Please use the
mirror of /pub/Yorick on my machine at wuarchive.wustl.edu: in the
/languages/yorick directory, if possible:

     ftp-icf.llnl.gov:/pub/Yorick/yorick-1.1.tar.gz
     ftp-icf.llnl.gov:/pub/Yorick/macintosh/yorick-*
     (only off hours; use wuarchive mirror if possible)

I will also keep a list of known bugs and installation problems on ftp-icf:

     ftp-icf.llnl.gov:/pub/Yorick/yorick-README


Who to contact
--------------

If you write an interesting, self-documenting Yorick include file,
please tell me about it at munro@icf.llnl.gov.  I will try to collect
useful programs to be part of the next distribution.

If you repair a bug or have constructive comments, send email to:

     munro@icf.llnl.gov       <David H. Munro>

The MacIntosh port was done by Steven H. Langer, shl@icf.llnl.gov.

You can also subscribe to the Yorick mailing list by sending the message
     subscribe yorick
(in the *body* of the message, *not* the Subject: header) to
     majordomo@lists.llnl.gov
If you have some question, comment, or Yorick source code you think
might be valuable to other Yorick users, you may post it to all the
subscribers by sending it to
    yorick@llnl.gov
(Potentially dumb questions - and all installation problems - should
still go to munro@icf.llnl.gov.)

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Version 1.0 was unstable, because many egregious bugs in the configuration
script were discovered only after its release.  I will try to resist the
temptation to make minor alterations to version 1.1.
Changes since 1.0:
  The dbug> prompt is no longer issued until you really are in debug mode.
  The poly() function now works with lvalue arguments.
  Clipping a plg,closed=1 curve no longer triggers a core dump.
  The huge source files in MathC/ have been split.
  Some (not all) syntax errors in #include directives are now detected.

Steve Langer has made major improvements in the MacIntosh version:
  The graphics are many times faster.
  Command-. now interrupts Mac Yorick (almost) like Ctrl-c on UNIX.
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