MCL3 Review
Volume Number: 11
Issue Number: 9
Column Tag: Object-Oriented Languages
Macintosh Common Lisp 3.0 
An Old Language is New Again!
By Rich Parker, Modesto, CA
Note: Source code files accompanying article are located on MacTech CD-ROM orsource code disks.
MCL: The Rumor and The Truth
For a while last year we all thought that Macintosh Common Lisp (MCL) was going to
be abandoned. Apple had decided not to continue development of the product and there
was no suitable replacement in sight, particularly for the new PowerMac computers.
But Apple finally decided to sell the product to Digitool, Inc. Digitool started right off
by commencing the development of two new versions of the product; the first is the
new 68K version 3.0 (which, unlike the previous version 2.0.1 runs just fine on the
PowerMac with the Modern Memory Manager enabled). Digitool is also working on a
PowerMac native version of the product, which they say will be released later this
year.
Creating the PowerMac version is a fairly major undertaking, mainly because
MCL contains an incremental compiler that generates native 68K code. MCL also relies
on the memory management facilities of the 68K family, and supports 68K-style
floating-point computations. All of this will have to change for a native PPC version.
But Digitool promises that the upcoming PowerMac product will be very efficient and
fully compatible with even the latest PowerMac machines.
The truth is that MCL 3.0 is extremely efficient right now, even though it’s
running under emulation mode on my PowerMac 6100. It no longer crashes when I
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