3 ms·
I'm by no means a user of an actual Lisp Machine (would love to be though), but I can offer a few anecdotes I have picked up. Firstly, computers back then were
by merlincorey 11y ago
I'm by no means a user of an actual Lisp Machine (would love to be though), but I can offer a few anecdotes I have picked up.
Firstly, computers back then were so much slower than they are now that the speed boost from running native versus interpreted is definitely nothing to scoff at.
Secondly, I now use StumpWM, a tiling window manager written in Common Lisp. This means I can connect to the lisp process that runs my window manager to inspect it, debug it, automate it, or make changes live. Now imagine you can do this with the entire machine!
Thirdly, and finally, not everyone is aware of the etymology of "car" and "cdr":
* car (short for "Contents of the Address part of Register number"),
* cdr ("Contents of the Decrement part of Register number")
* cpr ("Contents of the Prefix part of Register number")
* ctr ("Contents of the Tag part of Register number")
The original lisp implementation was on an IBM machine that had 36 bit words broken into 4 parts: the address register (15 bits), the decrement register (15 bits), the prefix (3 bits) and the tag (3 bits).
Lisp started out very close to the machine, for being such a high level language!
- duncan_bayne 11y ago"Secondly, I now use StumpWM, a tiling window manager written in Common Lisp. This means I can connect to the lisp process that runs my window manager to inspect it, debug it, automate it, or make changes live. Now imagine you can do this with the entire machine!" A million times this! Such a machine, end-user-programmable from the ground up, is a real 'bicycle for the mind'.
- digi_owl 11y agoAnd would probably make just about any marketer and/or lawyer run screaming...
- duncan_bayne 11y agoIndeed. Which just means it's a doubly worthwhile project :) But seriously, this is the promise of computing we're talking about. It had to be put on hold for a while, because when you're dealing with a resource-constrained machine like an early 8-bit micro, IBM PC, or Mac, you're going to have to ship tightly optimised binaries and use non-native dev tools. So, given that no-one ships such a machine today, where are there priorities?
- TelmoMenezes 11y agoOne can dream.
- boondaburrah 11y agoTo that end, I'm really excited to see where InterimOS is going. http://interim.mntmn.com/ http://interim.mntmn.com/ (it was on hackernews earlier but I can't find the article)
- henesy 11y agoThis! InterimOS looks like a glimmer of hope in the dark. Here's to hoping it reaches its goals and we see an interim machine eventually.