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Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

lispm.de

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Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#81

Post by gcb0 »

mehmetemre wrote: post #33

> It was completely programmable with all source code. It was also not for 'playing' around - for that it was too expensive. As a software developer you could focus on your task and the whole operating system was supporting you. There was no piece of software that was not accessible in a few mouse clicks. Everything could be inspected, everything was up for modification. Software was live and dynamic. Not dead and st…

sound just like gentoo. which is not different than debian if you force yourself to be a mashocist and only use source repos.

Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#82

Post by michaelmike »

lispm wrote: post #74
pavement wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$23,000 is still a pretty penny.

I have for example this NXP1000, with twice the RAM: ftp://ftp.ai.sri.com/pub/mailing-lists/slug/930331/msg00117.html $18,700 in 1992. The last hardware Lisp Machine type. Many years later I got mine for free from a telco equipment manufacturer.

I don't see the relevance. I, too, can easily find dead-end hardware that was expensive years ago that no one wants today. Most are just happy someone is taking that crap out of their hands. It's big, heavy, has strange power requirements, people forgot how to even turn it on and get it running, etc.

Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#83

Post by [deleted] »

michaelmike wrote: post #82
lispm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have for example this NXP1000, with twice the RAM: ftp://ftp.ai.sri.com/pub/mailing-lists/slug/930331/msg00117.html $18,700 in 1992. The last hardware Lisp Machine type. Many years later I got mine for free from a telco equipment manufacturer.

I don't see the relevance. I, too, can easily find dead-end hardware that was expensive years ago that no one wants today. Most are just happy someone is taking that crap out of their hands. It's big, heavy, has strange power requirements, people forgot how to even turn it on and get it running, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#84

Post by hga »

gcb0 wrote: post #80
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still going on a vintage Model M. Heavy touch, satisfying clank on each stroke.

model m is overrrated amd loud. cherry stopped in time. alps lowered standards to fight off bad income. ...good switches help you feel the key and avoid bottom out. i personally like old complex alps, but everyone will like something different.

"good switches help you feel the key and avoid bottom out"

To deal with bottoming out, using Cherry Blue switches, I've found that these red dampeners work very nicely: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZQ3966/ There are also thicker ones that have better stocking: http://www.amazon.com/Cherry-Rubber-O-Ring-Switch-Dampeners/... and the same company has a nice key puller: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZCGF7K/

Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#85

Post by michaelmike »

[deleted] wrote: post #83
michaelmike wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the relevance. I, too, can easily find dead-end hardware that was expensive years ago that no one wants today. Most are just happy someone is taking that crap out of their hands. It's big, heavy, has strange power requirements, people forgot how to even turn it on and get it running, etc.

[deleted]

Thanks for the downvote, guy.

$18k is still a shitton of money. I guess you don't get that.

Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#87

Post by aidenn0 »

crististm wrote: post #76
aidenn0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think it would have proceeded at a slower pace, and would have been more expensive. The tradeoffs may or may not have been worth it, but there seemed to be an obsession with doing it Right rather than doing it cheap and quick. Even today it would be financially beneficial to buy a $70k workstation over a $2k workstation for a developer if there was a significant boost to productivity; each developer cost…

You may be right but considering today's situation, it really looks like a local maximum. Cheap and fast can get you only that far. What I wonder is why for 20+ years there was no successful free software project that would mimic the Lisp Machines.

It takes a lot of attention to detail to make software like the lisp machines. Most free software projects stop at "Good Enough" so we end up with e.g. slime.

Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#88

Post by EdwardCoffin »

segmondy wrote: post #53
crististm wrote: post #26

I've managed today to boot OpenGenera in a Linux VM. It took me a couple of weeks but it finally works. I intend to have a look myself at what the fuss is all about. If you're interested, here are some pointers to relevant resources (snap4.tar.gz image works as advertised): http://www.advogato.org/person/johnw/diary/12.html http://www.cliki.net/VLM_on_Linux http://libarynth.org/vlm_on_linux The opengenera tar-ball ca…

What's the fuss all about? A lot, but please bear in mind the time this was developed. We are now in 2014. We are talking about something about 30 yrs old. A good way to really compare is to go compare with an Apple ][.

It certainly should not be compared with an Apple ][: the last Symbolics machine was introduced in 1992, the NXP1000. They were still adding features and such at that time, and the Apple ][ was long obsolete at that time.

There are some enlightening comments from Kent Pitman on comp.lang.lisp, which give a sense of what kinds of features the Lisp machines provided to developers, and why they still haven't been matched by contemporary systems:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.lisp/XpvUwF2xKbk/o...

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.lisp/XpvUwF2xKbk/X...

Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#89

Post by catenate »

pnathan wrote: post #51

What kind of systems today in the software development field are produced by experts for experts? The only ones I can think of are languages like C++ or Rust. Perhaps emacs and vi...

I use Inferno to develop software, as a virtual OS over top of Linux or Windows. Its community doesn't see any value in writing software just to make it easy to use for newbies. It is still actively maintained, with new changes from Plan 9 development. There are even some new software tools developed in it (eg, I wrote a build tool). Maybe this qualifies?

Re: Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

#90

Post by rjsw »

rbanffy wrote: post #78
lispm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pharo runs on top of something, running on top of something else, ... Genera on the Lisp Machine runs on the metal. It is the process scheduler, it does handle the bus interrupts, it receives the network packets, it writes the bytes to the disk controller, it sets the bits in the graphics card, it writes the sound bytes to audio interface, the network packets are Lisp arrays, ...

I remember a guy once implemented a Smalltalk machine in an FPGA http://siliconsqueak.org/ seems to be related.

There is also a microcoded Java CPU [1] that runs in an FPGA.

[1] http://www.jopdesign.com/

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