Common Lisp: install SBCL on Windows

SBCL is one of the most respected Common Lisp implementations. Here’s how to install it on Windows and add its executable to the Path variable.

Let’s go to https://www.sbcl.org/platform-table.html and click on the cell at the intersection of the Windows row and the x86-64 column (assuming our Windows version is 64-bit).

At the time of writing, the latest available version is 2.5.6.

The file sbcl-2.5.6-x86-64-windows-binary.msi is downloaded. Let’s launch it and install SBCL at the default location — we’ll move it immediately after.

Let’s move it to the desired directory, for example c:/programs2/sbcl-2.5.6.

The executable is then located at:
c:/programs2/sbcl-2.5.6/sbcl.exe

Double-clicking on c:/programs2/sbcl-2.5.6/sbcl.exe launches SBCL:

The * greeting us is SBCL’s (minimalist) command prompt.

Let’s try a simple operation like (+ 2 2), which will return 4.

To quit SBCL, two equivalent instructions: (quit) or (exit).

It’s recommended to add the directory containing the executable, namely C:\programs2\sbcl-2.5.6, to the Windows (user) Path environment variable. We’ll then be able to launch SBCL from any directory.