Butterfly (Tradename) Expert Systems Execution Environment: A Functional Specification

摘要

This document is the initial functional specification of the Butterfly Expert Systems Tool Kit currently under development at BBN. It is an evolving document that will be updated at least four times a year. The Butterfly Expert Systems Tool Kit will support the development of expert systems on the Butterfly multiprocessor. It is implemented entirely in Common Lisp. The tool kit will support object oriented programming, annotated slots, rule system programming. The tool kit also provides some basic utilities for a programmer interface, debugging, and metering features for measuring concurrency. The Butterfly Expert System Tool Kit is distributed between a Butterfly multiprocessor and a front end lisp machine. The parts running on the Butterfly include run time support for the tool kit and communicates performance and debugging information to the front end for processing and display. The backend receives programs and commands from the front end.