Subject: Re: Lisp on TV
        Date: 11 Oct 1998 22:09:08 GMT
        From: Steve Gonedes 
        Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp



barmar@bbnplanet.com (Barry Margolin) writes:

 
< In last night's episode of "The Net" (on the USA cable network), which
< will be rerun tonight at 11pm EDT, there's a scene where a hacker is
< breaking into the computer system that runs the electric power grid.  Set
< your VCRs and freeze on the screen shot (it's about 15 minutes into the
< episode).  It looked to me like a couple of functions from a logic
< programming language (perhaps a Prolog interpreter) in Lisp.  Anyone
< recognize where the code is from?  Here's what I was able to see in the
< screen shot:
< 
< (lexpand 'bk-out hostile)
< 
< (defconstant unbound "unbound")
< 
< (defmacro deref (exp)
<   "Follow pointers for bound variables."
<   `(progn (loop while (and (var-p ,exp) (bound-p ,exp))
<              do (setf ,exp (var-binding ,exp)))
<           ,exp))
< 
< (defstruct var name (binding unbound))
< 
< (defun bound-p (var) (not (eq (var-binding var) unbound)
< 
< (defun unify (x y)
<   "Destructively unify two expressions"
<   (cond ((eql (deref x) (deref y) x)
<         ((var-p x) (set-binding1 x y))
<         ((var-p y) (set-binding1 y x))
<         ((and (bound-p x) (bound-p y))
<          (and (unify (deref x) (deref y))
< 

With the exception of (lexpand 'bk-out), it looks like the stuff on
page 377 and 378 of Norvig's Case Studies in CL, book.