Lisp Code for Recurrent Cascade-Correlation

[Scott.Fahlman@SEF1.SLISP.CS.CMU.EDU]

Simulation code for the Recurrent Cascade-Correlation (RCC) algorithm is
now available for FTP via Internet.  For now, only a Common Lisp version is
available.  This is the same version I've been using for my own
experiments, except that a lot of non-portable display and user-interface
code has been removed.

It shouldn't be too hard to modify Scott Crowder's C-based simulator for
Cascade-Correlation to implement the new algorithm, but the likely
"volunteers" to do the conversion are all too busy right now.  I'll send a
follow-up notice whenever a C version becomes available.

Instructions for obtaining the code via Internet FTP are included at the
end of this message.  If people can't get it by FTP, contact me by E-mail
and I'll try once to mail it to you.  If it bounces or your mailer rejects
such a large message, I don't have time to try a lot of other delivery
methods.  We are not prepared to distribute the software by floppy disk or
tape -- don't ask.

I am maintaining an E-mail list of people using any of our simulators so
that I can notify them of any changes or problems that occur.  I would
appreciate hearing about any interesting applications of this code, and
will try to help with any problems people run into.  Of course, if the code
is incorporated into any products or larger systems, I would appreciate an
acknowledgement of where it came from.

NOTE: This code code is in the public domain.  It is distributed without
charge on an "as is" basis.  There is no warranty of any kind by the
authors or by Carnegie-Mellon University.

There are several other programs in the "code" directory mentioned below:
Cascade-Correlation in Common Lisp and C, Quickprop in Common Lisp and C,
the Migraine/Aspirin simulator from MITRE, and some simulation code written
by Tony Robinson for the vowel benchmark he contributed to the benchmark
collection.

-- Scott
***************************************************************************

For people (at CMU, MIT, and soon some other places) with access to the
Andrew File System (AFS), you can access the files directly from directory
"/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/connect/code".  This file system uses the same
syntactic conventions as BSD Unix: case sensitive names, slashes for
subdirectories, no version numbers, etc.  The protection scheme is a bit
different, but that shouldn't matter to people just trying to read these
files.

For people accessing these files via FTP:

1. Create an FTP connection from wherever you are to machine
"pt.cs.cmu.edu".  The internet address of this machine is 128.2.254.155,
for those who need it.

2. Log in as user "anonymous" with no password.  You may see an error
message that says "filenames may not have /.. in them" or something like
that.  Just ignore it.

3. Change remote directory to "/afs/cs/project/connect/code".  Any
subdirectories of this one should also be accessible.  Parent directories
may not be.

4. At this point FTP should be able to get a listing of files in this
directory and fetch the ones you want.  The RCC simulator
lives in file "rcc1.lisp".

If you try to access this directory by FTP and have trouble,
please contact me.

The exact FTP commands you use to change directories, list files, etc.,
will vary from one version of FTP to another.