2.1 Basics of Starting Scheme

Under unix, MIT/GNU Scheme is invoked by typing

     scheme

at your operating system's command interpreter. Under Windows, MIT/GNU Scheme is invoked by double-clicking on a shortcut. In either case, Scheme will load itself and print something like this:

     Scheme saved on Monday June 17, 2002 at 12:10:46 PM
       Release 7.7.1
       Microcode 14.9
       Runtime 15.1

This information, which can be printed again by evaluating

     (identify-world)

tells you the following version information. ‘Release’ is the release number for the entire Scheme system. This number is changed each time a new version of Scheme is released. ‘Microcode’ is the version number for the part of the system that is written in C. ‘Runtime’ is the version number for the part of the system that is written in Scheme.

Following this there may be additional version numbers for specific subsystems. ‘SF’ refers to the scode optimization program sf, ‘Liar’ is the native-code compiler, ‘Edwin’ is the Emacs-like text editor, and ‘6.001’ is the SICP compatibility package.

You can load the compiler by giving Scheme the --compiler option:

     scheme --compiler

This option causes Scheme to use a larger constant space and heap, and to load the world image containing the compiler.