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				 Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
				 Stanford, California 94305
				 25 Jan 1974



Y. Sirat
Institut Max von Laue - Paul Langevin
B.P. 156 Centre de tri
38042 Grenoble Cedex, France

Dear Mr. Sirat,

	Dan Swinehart gave me your recent letter concerning SAIL,
since he has now completed his degree and has passed on the
responsibility for maintaining the language to me.  We have made a
number of recent improvements to SAIL, which are documented in a new
edition of the manual.  However, these changes do not include any
implementation of double precision operations. Furthermore, it seems
very unlikely that double precision will be implemented in the
forseeable future, since there really isn't any demand for it by any
of the SAIL users here at Stanford.  (Usually, it is possible to call
on external FORTRAN procedures to do any such computations).  As to
getting a more recent system: About three months ago, we sent to
DECUS a complete new SAIL system containing essentially all the new
features of the language, together with many bug fixes.  So you
should be able to get a complete set of files and documentation from
them.  I am not exactly sure just what their distribution practices
are, but you should be able to find out by writing to them.
Alternatively, you could send me a blank tape, and I could send it
back to you with all the relevant files (we have, however, only
seven-track drives here).  However, we are just about out of hard
copies of the manual, so you would still have to get that from DECUS.
If you are in no special hurry, however, it may be generally easier
for you to get the entire system through DECUS.  In about another
month, we will be sending them yet another update containing a few
additional features added in the past three months, together with a
few important bug fixes (which you would also get by sending us the
tape, of course). I hope this tells you what you needed to know.  If
you should require more information, feel free to write.

				 Sincerely,



				 Russell H. Taylor