S  M  L   /   N  J

                  1  1  0  .  3  0      N  E  W  S
			
  		           November 4, 2000

Summary:
	
	o Port to ppc Linux (thanks to Carl Pulley).

        o support for fsqrt, fptan, fcos, fsin.

	o Several CM and CMB changes.
 
 	o Some critical bug fixes

 		------------------------------------

Bug fixes:
	o 1514.  sockets c-library broken 
	o 1582.  SysErr exception connecting to socket


Back ends:

 x86:

   All back ends now directly generate the sqrt instruction, and the Intel 
   x86 also generate the trig instructions to implement sine, cosine, and
   tangent.

   The ICFP00, PCLubIN entry shows a significant improvement as a result
   (most of it coming from fsqrt).


			     110.29	110.30	     Speedup%
			 ------------------------------------
    tests/chess.gml:	      21.63      18.38	      17.67	
    tests/cone-fractal.gml:    6.24       4.71	      32.46	
    tests/dice.gml:	       8.81       6.14	      43.53	
    tests/fractal.gml:	      46.25      35.57	      30.03     
    tests/golf.gml:	       3.24       2.62	      23.73     
    tests/holes.gml:	       4.26       3.15	      35.41     
    tests/intercyl.gml:	       4.43       2.52	      75.87     
    tests/large.gml:	       7.27       6.68	       8.83     
    tests/pipe.gml:	       8.71       5.23	      66.42     
    tests/snowgoon.gml:	       5.41       3.99	      35.83     
    ---------------------------------------------------------
    Geometric Mean	       8.06	  5.94	      31.64%    


CM (compilation manager):

  Changes to scripts:
      * "ml-build" for generating standalone programs
      * "ml-makedepend" (new!) for generating Makefile dependencies
        (not generally required but some project might want them)
      * "sml" - the main driver script for running SML/NJ.
     + All these scripts now accept more CM-related command-line options.
     + ml-build is faster and cleverer in avoiding unnecessary work.

  Type of CM.mk_standalone has changed.

  All user-visible changes to CM (including the above-mentioned scripts)
    are documented in the CM manual.  Some errors and omissions have been
    corrected as well.

  Bug fixes to CM's internals (e.g., missing or repeated error messages).

  Pickling/Unpickling improvements result in faster autoloading and
    reduce resident memory size.

CMB (bootstrap compiler):

  Conditional compilation within the "init library".
    (One can now use "ifdef" and "ifndef" guards in init.cmi.
     This is documented in the long comment at the beginning of
     that file (src/system/smlnj/init/init.cmi).)


Basis Library:

  Added SMLofNJ.SysInfo.getHeapSuffix (for use by "ml-build").