Here is the very basic information on how to start running ACT-R 6.  More 
information is available in the tutorials and reference manual.

These instructions assume that you are using the source code and not the ACT-R 
standalone application.  The instructions for the standalone version are 
different and vary by system so you should consult the readme file that is 
included with the standalone to install and run it.


1) Download the source files and extract them from the archive (zip file or 
disk image).

2) Start your Lisp application.  ACT-R should work with any ANSI Common Lisp 
and it has been tested with ACL (Allegro Common Lisp), LispWorks, MCL (Macintosh
Common Lisp), CLisp, CMUCL, OpenMCL, CCL (Clozure Common Lisp), SBCL, and ABCL.

3) In your Lisp application, load the load-act-r-6.lisp file which is found at 
the top level of the ACT-R sources.

That will load all of the necessary ACT-R files and once the ACT-R version 
information is printed it is ready to use.

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If you would like to use the ACT-R Environment GUI and you have a Lisp 
application which can run it then you need to perform the steps below.

The ACT-R Environment can be run with ACL, LispWorks, MCL, OpenMCL, CCL, and CMUCL.  
It can also be run with versions of SBCL that have the multiprocessing support 
included.

Here are the additional steps which can be used to run ACT-R with the Environment 
for all Lisps (note there is an optional shorter set of steps which may be used
in some Lisp & OS combinations listed below):

4) Run the appropriate Environment application which is included with the ACT-R
source files.  The applications are found in the environment directory.
 - On Windows you should run the "Start Environment.exe" application.
 - On Macs with OS X it's the "Start Environment OSX" application.  
 - For Unix/Linux you need to have Tcl/Tk installed and then you must run 
   the starter.tcl script located in the GUI subdirectory of the environment
   directory.

5) Wait for the "Control Panel" window to appear.  It should be on the far 
right side of your display and will say "Waiting for ACT-R" at the top.

6) Once the "Control Panel" is waiting call the start-environment function 
from the Lisp with ACT-R loaded in it.  That will connect ACT-R to the GUI 
tools and several buttons should now be available on the "Control Panel". 

After the buttons appear the ACT-R Environment is connected and available.


Alternatively, if you are using LispWorks or Allegro Common Lisp under either 
Mac OS X or Windows then you may be able to replace steps 4-6 above with a single 
step.
  
4) Call the function run-environment.  That should automatically run the 
appropriate Environment application and then initiate the connection between 
ACT-R and the Environment.  

Run-environment is currently an experimental test, and may not work right in all 
situations.  If the Environment application does not start, then you should use 
the standard instructions described above.  If the application starts, but the 
connection does not complete (no version information window or buttons show up 
in the control panel) or you get an error, then you may need to increase the delay 
before ACT-R attempts to connect to the Environment.  The delay can be provided 
as an optional parameter to run-environment.  The default delay is 12 seconds
which seems to be safe for most machines.  A longer delay may be necessary in some 
cases, and on some machines a shorter delay will work just fine.


When you are done, regardless of how you started the Environment, you should 
call stop-environment from Lisp before closing either the Environment 
application or the Lisp application to make sure the Environment closes down 
and saves its settings correctly.


If you have any questions, problems or comments please send them to 
Dan (db30@andrew.cmu.edu).
