[This was sent to the MiNT mailing list, announcing a new binary version
of Python 1.3...  MiNT is a multitasking operating system for Atari
computers.  The port was trivial... once I got the configure scripts to
run, all I had to do was add #include <ctype.h> to one source file for
isalpha()... nice. - Chris]

Jan.25/96

Here is Python 1.3 for MiNT!

This is a more complete, and nicer (due to the inclusion of several
extra modules and libraries) port of Python 1.3 to MiNT.

For full Python source code and anything else that isn't included here,
go to ftp.python.org in /pub/python/src/python1.3.tar.gz (full
documentation can be found on my web pages, as well as in the Python
source archive).

Extra bits built into this Python:

 - GNU readline 2.0; this gives you good command-line editing
   within Python... of course, it's only useful if you're entering
   programs right into Python (which is great for fooling around, etc).

 - sockets!  Yes, Kay's socket code (version 0.80) is here, so you can
   use Python with MiNT-net... combine that with all the spiffy network
   modules for Python (FTP, HTTP, NNTP, etc, etc) and we've got a very
   powerful networking tool here.

 - GNU dbm 1.73; my port of this database library/engine is here as
   well, giving us nice fast databases directly from within Python

 - George Neville-Neil's timing module:

 - Lance Ellinghaus's rotor module (enigma-inspired encryption)

 - Andy Bensky's "environment" module (contains putenv())

 - David Wayne Williams' soundex module

None of these were in my last port, and the readline support was sorely
missed by Eero.  :-)  It's his fault that I did this, actually; he kept
bugging me about how great Python was, so I _had_ to check it out
eventually.

Hopefully I'll have a cool little W or GEM application built soon with
Python embedded in it as an expansion language (you'll be able to
control what the program draws on screen from the built-in Python
interpreter).

You can grab extra Python information and goodies (including loads of
extra Python code, and the complete source archives) from:

	Web: http://www.python.org/
	FTP: ftp.python.org

Enjoy!

Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com)
http://www.qnx.com/~chrish/