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When I look into a language, the first thing I check is "How do I do random IO to fixed size blocks on a disk file?" Most functional languages don't document any answer to that at all. (With Erlang it's "Use our custom database", so they've an answer, of sorts.)

For haskell, you might want to look at System.Posix.IO. I haven't had to do arbitrary seeking in haskell, but that's what I'd probably try first if I did. Of course, all this has to happen inside the IO monad, so you'll need to be prepared to deal with monads. You might find the IO chapter in real world haskell helpful.

The second thing I look for is "How do I draw pictures on the screen, and get user responses?" Gtk is an acceptable answer. So is SDL. Erlang has a custom approach that is decent for drawing buttons in boxes, etc., but not really sufficient for what I want. Most functional languages don't seem to even consider the matter. (Perhaps they do, but it doesn't seem to appear in the documentation.)

Both haskell and ocaml have pretty good OpenGL bindings, called Hopengl (tutorial) and LablGL respectively. Ocaml also has a simpler built-in graphics library, and haskell has an (I believe) windows-only graphics library that is used extensively for examples in the book "The Haskell School of Expression".

...that I was thinking of:

Animated GIF slide show of internals

Divisumma was the first thing that came to mind for me, though the MonroeMatic could be a contender. You should see the inside of those...

Though some cash registers give those a run for their money... So to speak.

Sweden has a pretty nice and wellused system of identification - the holy personnummer.http://www.tfh-berlin.de/~weberwu/wri tings/HOLY.htm

The system is really easy yymmdd-nnn(checksumdigit) and works very very well. Identity theft is really uncommon (never heard about one, except minors forging a ID to get into a bar). The "personnummer" is used everywhere, it is looked to you medical record, tax record, employment, bankaccount and a lot more. It's follows you from birth (you get one 3-10 days after birth) until you dies.

The ID-cards has to follow the swedish standard assocations rules to be valid. A card with there hologram is accepted everywhere and it's not uncommon that companys has there own ID card with there logotype as a way to tell that the person really comes from that company.

Most card allso has a barcode imprinted on the back to allow shops to easily enter you 'personnummer' when you use a creditcard.

What about GSMP?

Not as complete as VST butnot bad either.
Actually if Gimp is GNU's Photoshop, then GSMP should be its VST...

You think this is bad? Nearly one year ago I moved to Sweden. Every swede has a so called personnumber which is formatted like yymmdd-xxxx (your birtday + four digits). Without it you are lost. You can't do anything in sweden without a person number. Swedes are really clueless about it I always have lots of fun when I have to show my dutch passport. First they spent a few minutes looking at the passport. When they start looking really confused I explain them that it is not a swedish passport (duh) and therefore my personnumber cannot be found in it.

Basically you can't open a bankaccount, can't get phone in your house, can't rent a fucking video tape without a personnumber in this country. Luckily I got one since I have a job in this country and have to pay (a lot) taxes.

A dutch friend of me who also lives here teaches database courses. One of the standard things he has to teach his students is not to use the perssonnumber as a primary key. Unfortunately they don't listen and most databases in this country use perssonnumber as a primary key so you have a lot of trouble fitting in to the system if you don't have one.

If you want to read more about the personnumber I have a nice link
here.

First I'm dutch (holland is also ok), I just live in sweden.
Second, most things are better in Sweden than in the US.

Unlike the US the government actually cares about their people.

I can't confirm what you said about sterilization though I did hear some rumours that it was true. The rumours I heard was that they copied this method from America.

America has far more problems then just guns and no sense of community. Christian fundamentalism, Education, poverty, drugs (caused by a combination of the previous three factors), criminality, lack of democracy (I wouldn't call the way presidents get to power in america democratic, large sums of bribing money and smear campaigns seem to be necessary).

Sweden is not a perfect country though. There's some violence from right wing extremists, a very stupid alcohol law which causes alcohol to cost two to three times as much as in Holland. Furthermore it is only available in state shops.

And then there is the holy person number. This number (something like a social security number). Every swede is given a number which looks like this yymmdd-xxxx. Apart from the fact that it is not 2000 prepared (only two digits for the year), it is abused on a large scale. Basically you have to show it nearly everywhere (to open a bank account, get a phone in your room, to get a job, to rent a video). Very annoying if you don't have one like me when I just came here. They gave me one after a while and I have memorized it because I need it a lot. There's a fun link about this here.

Also you pay a lot of taxes in sweden. But you get a very low criminality, insurance, good education, good roads, good public transportation and a friendly society for that.

BTW.if there's one country that's arrogant, it's the USA. The USA is trying to push their culture on all other countries in the world. Since they acquired nukes in the fifties they've been telling other countries in this world how to behave and what to do, sometimes with devastating consequences. It is sort of fun to see americans realize they don't live in a perfect country after a drama like this (something which is pretty obvious from this side of the ocean). Those kids got so sick of the country they lived in they grabbed their guns and started shooting. Then they shot themselves because in the world where they lived you might as well be dead.

What shocked us europeans most is not the shooting but the fact that even right after the shooting a majority of the americans was proud of their gun policy. I don't think america learned their lesson from this particular incident.