newer RCS?

[Robert Elliott Smith]

Hi,
 Since there is some current discussion on various simulators, I thought
I'd bring this up. I retrieved the Rochester Connectionist Simulator
(dated 1989)
for use in a class last year. I really like the way it was designed, but
I did locate some significant bugs:
1) The order of execution in the program *does not* match the manual!
Check page 120 of the manual, the paragraph that starts "The execution 
cycle...", versus, the source code. I've forgotten exactly what
file the problem is in, but this is a significant problem if you
want to design your own archetectures. However, it's easy to fix. I'll
check the details if the author's write me back.
2) The backprop simulator (admittedly) abuses the structure of the RCS
itself. However, it seems to me that backprop could be built without
this abuse.
3) The system works with X11R3, but is a pain to get to run under
R4.

Despite these complaints, I really like the RCS! It's the only simulator
I've seen that has a truely flexible design philosophy, and doesn't
require you to learn a new programming language (you simply write 
subroutines in C, and compile them with the RCS library). 

Has anyone got a comprehensive update of RCS? 
Are the original authors out there?
If not, can we 
(those who have hacked parts of RCS) fix it up to realize its
potential. 
If it's the later, please don't bombard me with requests for my fixes,
but if you have others, write, and maybe we can put the whole
thing together.

Rob.
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Robert Elliott Smith
    Department of Engineering of Mechanics
    The University of Alabama
    P. O. Box 870278
    Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487
<<email>> @ua1ix.ua.edu:rob at galab2.mh.ua.edu 
<<phone>> (205) 348-1618
<<fax>> (205) 348-8573    
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