This output looks weird and probably
was not intended:
(%i1) display2d:false$
(%i2) build_info();
(%o2) ?%build_info("5.27.0","2012-05-08 11:27:57","i686-pc-mingw32",
"GNU Common Lisp (GCL)","GCL 2.6.8")
(%i3) display2d:true$
(%i4) build_info();
(%o4)
Maxima version: "5.27.0"
Maxima build date: "2012-05-08 11:27:57"
Host type: "i686-pc-mingw32"
Lisp implementation type: "GNU Common Lisp (GCL)"
Lisp implementation version: "GCL 2.6.8"
Ted Woollett
Problem is that the build_info output has a special function to display it in the 2-d display but not in 1-d. It would be straightforward to create a 1-d display function. I've assigned this item to myself for that. Thanks for pointing it out.
After discussion on the mailing list, I've concluded that the present output is as it must be (because 1-d output must be readable, in the sense that it can be given as input to the Maxima parser), and therefore this is an oddity but not something we can change. Marking this item "wont-fix" accordingly.
If you want to see the nicely formatted output, one can do something like this: