Scheme is big, I mean real big, ~5Meg with the default configuration. If you get the error Not enough memory for this configuration. then you'll have to try starting up a smaller scheme. To do this start up scheme like this: NOTE all of the following command are one line commands they are split onto two lines here because of their lengths. for normal scheme under unix: /mit/scheme/vaxbin/scheme -heap 100 for 6.001 scheme under unix: /mit/scheme/dist/microcode/scm6001 -band /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/sicp.bin \ -utab /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/utabmd.bin -heap 100 for 6.003 scheme under unix: /mit/scheme/6003/scm6003 -band /mit/scheme/6003/scm6003.bin \ -utab /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/utabmd.bin -heap 100 for 6.003 scheme with the SHE package under unix: /mit/scheme/6003/scm6003 -band /mit/scheme/6003/scm -utab \ /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/utabmd.bin -heap 100 for normal scheme under emacs: M-x run-scheme /mit/scheme/dist/microcode/scheme -band /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/scheme.bin \ -utab /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/utabmd.bin -heap 100 -emacs for 6.001 scheme under emacs: M-x run-scheme /mit/scheme/dist/microcode/scm6001 -band /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/sicp.bin \ -utab /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/utabmd.bin -heap 100 -emacs for 6.003 scheme under emacs: M-x run-scheme /mit/scheme/6003/scm6003 -band /mit/scheme/6003/scm6003.bin \ -utab /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/utabmd.bin -heap 100 -emacs for 6.003 scheme with the SHE package under emacs: M-x run-scheme /mit/scheme/6003/scm6003 -band /mit/scheme/6003/scm \ -utab /mit/scheme/dist/runtime/utabmd.bin -heap 100 -emacs If once you've done this you still get the same error, then you'll have to kill off some other programs before starting scheme.