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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.