GitHub - lispm/FRL: Frame Representation Language (original) (raw)

Frame Representation Language

See:

• Marvin Minsky (1974): A Framework for Representing Knowledge. AIM-306, Cambridge, US: MIT. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6089
• R. Bruce Roberts and Ira P. Goldstein (1977): FRL Primer, AIM-408, Cambridge, US: MIT. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/5767
• R. Bruce Roberts and Ira P. Goldstein (1977): FRL Manual, AIM-409, Cambridge, US: MIT. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/5768

From the FRL Primer (1977):

The Frame Representation Language (FRL) is an experimental language written to explore the use of frames as a knowledge representation technique. The term "frame" as used in FRL was inspired by Minsky's development of frame theory. FRL extends the traditional Property Lisp representatipn scheme by allowing properties to have comments, defaults and constraints, to inherit information from abstract forms of the same type, and to have attached procedures triggered by assing or deleting values, or if a value is needed.

The code in this repository might run in Franz Lisp and Lisp Machine Lisp. It probably does not run in Common Lisp.

frl is the frame representation language from MIT

frl.n is the original version of the manual. frl.manual is the manual for frl, with my changes but it has several problems. It has a macro .Lf which is critical to the production of the manual, but is not defined anywhere. to produce it, type:

vtroff -F nonie -me -tbl frl.manual &
    it will send index entries to your terminal, ignore these.
    (notice that it uses the tbl preprocessor.)

I have hacked up a couple of the macros for the manuals, you are welcome to fix them up even more (i.e., I only made one pass).

-- Rob Milne (milnbe@wpafb-afita)