<adlai>
daphnis: yes; that prompt is an abbreviated name for the current value of the cl:*package* variable, so you can make it be pretty much any string you'd like
<daphnis>
adlai: sorry, i'm completely new at this: what exactly would i type to get just the ">" ?
<adlai>
apology both accepted and ... makes me nostalgic! so there, now you do have something to apologise about, instead of asking a good question
<adlai>
as for your good question, i have no idea
<adlai>
you could try setting the package nickname to an empty string, although this may not work on your specific installation
<adlai>
daphnis: this form will almost certainly cause an error, since you are effectively modifying a built-in global default value, but it should do what you need: (cl:progn (cl:in-package "CL-USER") (cl:rename-package cl:*package* "CL-USER" (cl:cons "" (cl:package-nicknames cl:*package*))))
<adlai>
daphnis: since you say you are completely new at this, i offer ...
<adlai>
a reference tool: http://l1sp.org/cl/progn replace the last word 'progn' with any common lisp symbol to get the standard documentation... probably more technical than you need, although that is the reference