Ielm vs. ":"

Wednesday, 22 July 1998

        I can no longer use ielm in b50.  

Ielm uses the symbols `:', `::', and `:::' to refer to the results of
the previous, second previous and third previous evaluations
respectively.

However in b50, doing  (setq : nil) results in

Attempt to set a constant symbol: :, nil

Similarly for :: and :::.  In fact, (boundp '::::::::::::::::) 
evaluates "t" for an arbitrarily long string of colons.  Why?  

It's been several betas since I tested ielm, but it used to work.