[no subject]

    What does the last phrase in the description of make-broadcast-stream
    ("every operation results in nil") mean?  This phrase was not present in
    the Excelsior edition.  The values returned by the Common Lisp stream
    functions are defined with each function and are not up to the stream.
    There isn't (in Common Lisp) anything else that could be called an
    "operation."

Since nobody else has popped up to answer this question, I'll try.  It
seems very clear to me that the "every operation results in NIL"
business is a slip-up and should not be there.  In case there is not
really an output stream you want all output to be discarded, but write
operations should return whatever they would normally return.  Perhaps
Guy was trying to say that any operation whose return value is undefined
if there is no real stream, such as STREAM-ELEMENT-TYPE, would return
NIL for this type of stream.

If Guy really intends this phrase to be taken seriously, which implies
special-casing every stream operation to handle this case, then some more
motivation and discussion is needed.  In the absence of such, we are
treating this as an error.

-- Scott