11 ms·

Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

126 points by rbc 10y ago

catpolice 10y ago
We have one of these sitting in the lobby at my office, used as a coffee table.
- mordocai 10y ago
  If it is functional(and maybe if not), you can potentially get a decent amount of money from selling that.
  - tachyonbeam 10y ago
    Or you could donate it to the computer history museum.
    - eschaton 10y ago
      They have a couple, they're on display and in the collection. Better that it would go to someone who would restore the whole thing (not just the exterior) and actually use it.
      - rbc 10y ago
        I donated my MacIvory, hosted in a Macintosh Quadra 650, to the Computer History Museum. If you see one of those there, it might be my old one.
  - yomly 10y ago
    Well it certainly isn't imperative!
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      ...yes, it is. Lisp is a multiparadigm language. Most lispms where programmed using a mixture of OO and procedural code, with a bit of FP here and there.
    - gumby 10y ago
      I would call Commonlisp an imperative language.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  I'll give you my coffee table for yours.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Symbolics made some really cool tech. I just wish everybody would stop complaining about it. Yes, it was amazing. Yes, nothing modern can ever compare, not even Emacs, an environment arising from the same culture. Yes, we who experienced The Glory of the Lispm must eternally genuflect before it, condescending to anybody who didn't. Instead, go look at what Symbolics did (or try: it's quite hard to get the emulator running), and learn. That system lost, and it's never coming back, but you can learn from what they did well when building your own system. But when you have, don't complain about the inferiority of our systems. It may be true (I can't get the emulator running to find out), but it gets annoying pretty fast. Take the energy you would use doing that, and put it into making your system that much better.
- mordocai 10y ago
  You act like I have the skill, time, and motivation to build my own system. It is perfectly valid to tell the creators of the systems you use that you'd would prefer them to be more like X.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    I know that, but telling everybody who expresses any preference for any system that system X is obviously far superior is really annoying.
    - lispm 10y ago
      Nobody does that. But for certain areas this is true and you should not ignore that. Grady Booch once at an Eclipse conference: "For those of you looking at the future of development environments, I encourage you to go back and review some of the Xerox documentation for InterLisp-D."
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        ...Well, you do. And so do many other Lispers, for that matter. IIRC, I've been guilty of it myself.
lispm 10y ago
For a very early overview of the technology I would recommend the 3600 Technical Summary. The 3600 was the first machine which was mostly designed by Symbolics. It was followed by three more generations (gate array processor, micro-processor and a virtual machine) of CPUs with something like 20+ further models. I once used a 3600. :-) It greets with "Yes, master" when you turn it on. http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/symbolics/3600_series/3600_TechnicalSummary_Feb83.pdf http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/symbolics/3600_series...
- crististm 10y ago
  The alpha port that wanders on the torrents doesn't seem to have that. Either I didn't see it or is it something specific to a particular version of 3600?
  - lispm 10y ago
    The 3600 is a physical machine, a computer with a cpu, memory, disks, tape drive, lots of slots for extensions, network interface, console interface. It has a display on the machine. That display shows the message.
noahm 10y ago
I used to work with a number of LISP machine believers at the MIT AI Lab/CSAIL. They all had more modern computers for day to day tasks, but used the lispm for most of their programming. This wasn't that long ago (I left in 2010), and I suspect that those machines will remain in active use for as long as people can keep them running. They all believed that the loss of the lisp machine was a serious loss to society and were all very much saddened by it. I never used the system enough to come to my own conclusions in that regard, but it was interesting food for thought. As somebody for whom Linux/POSIX is very deeply entrenched, would I even recognize a truly superior system if it was dropped in my lap? More importantly, would society in general? The superior technology is rarely the "winner"
- behnamoh 10y ago
  > The superior technology is rarely the "winner" True dat. Unfortunately, as Theo de Raadt once said: "In some industry markets, high quality can be tied to making more money, but I am sure by now all of us know the computer industry is not like that." I think the only thing we can do is follow the trend. This whole industry is not perfect anyway.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    We can do more than that. If everybody followed the trend, then Lisp would be dead, and we'd all just write Java. shivers
    - behnamoh 10y ago
      I used to think likewise (you can check my previous comments). But at the end of the day, you gotta pay the bills... Nonetheless, I have huge respect for CL. I think I'm gonna learn it well once and for all. (maybe use it for back-end).
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        True 'nuff. I prefer Scheme to CL. The tooling isn't as developed, but Chicken and Guile are both plenty usable, and Scheme is less crufty than CL.
protomyth 10y ago
Who actually owns the Symbolics IP these days? I still wonder if it would be possible to put a 3600 on a chip.
- gumby 10y ago
  I heard rumor that JCMA had bought it. I'll ask him.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- buttershakes 10y ago
  I thought that symbolics was still running in a limited capacity and pulling in money from government contracts. At least that was the case five or six years ago. I know licenses for Genera were being sold as late as 2010 for around 5k. I would be interested to know if this IP changed hands.
- bbctol 10y ago
  I'm distantly related to the original founder, and have been told this confusing version of the story: Symbolics was bought out buy a different company that then renamed themselves Symbolics, though none of the people remained and the new company just pulled government contract money for "maintenance." Eventually, the IP was owned by a single person named Andrew Topping, who was known to the rest of the world pretty much only by name; no one knows his history. Then he died. Now nobody has any clue who owns the IP, where any useful documentation is, etc...
DigitalJack 10y ago
I get the nostalgia for these machines. I have great nostalgia for my old computers, the ones I learned on. I have watched some videos of open genera. I don't see the appeal. It was neat for the time, but I have a hard time seeing what problems it solves for today. I'm not trolling, if someone can give some specifics, I'd be interested to read them.
starseeker 10y ago
Wonder if there have been any updates since this: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1a4wvf/kalman_reti_the_last_symbolics_developer_speaks/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1a4wvf/kalman_...
Animats 10y ago
I used the Symbolics refrigerator (the 3600) briefly, but found Franz LISP on a Sun II more useful. But then I'm not into editing from a control break.
jmorrison 10y ago
I have an old MacIvory (Symbolics board set housed in a Mac II) which doesn't want to boot anymore. IIRC Googling indicated that the Mac IIs are like cars - they won't turn over if the motherboard battery is dead. I changed the battery - no joy. Anybody have any recommendations, whether for a repair place (New England, USA) or further DIY things to try?

126 points by rbc 10y ago

catpolice 10y ago

We have one of these sitting in the lobby at my office, used as a coffee table.

mordocai 10y ago
If it is functional(and maybe if not), you can potentially get a decent amount of money from selling that.
- tachyonbeam 10y ago
  Or you could donate it to the computer history museum.
  - eschaton 10y ago
    They have a couple, they're on display and in the collection. Better that it would go to someone who would restore the whole thing (not just the exterior) and actually use it.
    - rbc 10y ago
      I donated my MacIvory, hosted in a Macintosh Quadra 650, to the Computer History Museum. If you see one of those there, it might be my old one.
- yomly 10y ago
  Well it certainly isn't imperative!
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    ...yes, it is. Lisp is a multiparadigm language. Most lispms where programmed using a mixture of OO and procedural code, with a bit of FP here and there.
  - gumby 10y ago
    I would call Commonlisp an imperative language.
agumonkey 10y ago
I'll give you my coffee table for yours.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Symbolics made some really cool tech. I just wish everybody would stop complaining about it. Yes, it was amazing. Yes, nothing modern can ever compare, not even Emacs, an environment arising from the same culture. Yes, we who experienced The Glory of the Lispm must eternally genuflect before it, condescending to anybody who didn't. Instead, go look at what Symbolics did (or try: it's quite hard to get the emulator running), and learn. That system lost, and it's never coming back, but you can learn from what they did well when building your own system. But when you have, don't complain about the inferiority of our systems. It may be true (I can't get the emulator running to find out), but it gets annoying pretty fast. Take the energy you would use doing that, and put it into making your system that much better.

mordocai 10y ago
You act like I have the skill, time, and motivation to build my own system. It is perfectly valid to tell the creators of the systems you use that you'd would prefer them to be more like X.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  I know that, but telling everybody who expresses any preference for any system that system X is obviously far superior is really annoying.
  - lispm 10y ago
    Nobody does that. But for certain areas this is true and you should not ignore that. Grady Booch once at an Eclipse conference: "For those of you looking at the future of development environments, I encourage you to go back and review some of the Xerox documentation for InterLisp-D."
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      ...Well, you do. And so do many other Lispers, for that matter. IIRC, I've been guilty of it myself.

lispm 10y ago

For a very early overview of the technology I would recommend the 3600 Technical Summary. The 3600 was the first machine which was mostly designed by Symbolics. It was followed by three more generations (gate array processor, micro-processor and a virtual machine) of CPUs with something like 20+ further models. I once used a 3600. :-) It greets with "Yes, master" when you turn it on. http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/symbolics/3600_series/3600_TechnicalSummary_Feb83.pdf http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/symbolics/3600_series...

crististm 10y ago
The alpha port that wanders on the torrents doesn't seem to have that. Either I didn't see it or is it something specific to a particular version of 3600?
- lispm 10y ago
  The 3600 is a physical machine, a computer with a cpu, memory, disks, tape drive, lots of slots for extensions, network interface, console interface. It has a display on the machine. That display shows the message.

noahm 10y ago

I used to work with a number of LISP machine believers at the MIT AI Lab/CSAIL. They all had more modern computers for day to day tasks, but used the lispm for most of their programming. This wasn't that long ago (I left in 2010), and I suspect that those machines will remain in active use for as long as people can keep them running. They all believed that the loss of the lisp machine was a serious loss to society and were all very much saddened by it. I never used the system enough to come to my own conclusions in that regard, but it was interesting food for thought. As somebody for whom Linux/POSIX is very deeply entrenched, would I even recognize a truly superior system if it was dropped in my lap? More importantly, would society in general? The superior technology is rarely the "winner"

behnamoh 10y ago
> The superior technology is rarely the "winner" True dat. Unfortunately, as Theo de Raadt once said: "In some industry markets, high quality can be tied to making more money, but I am sure by now all of us know the computer industry is not like that." I think the only thing we can do is follow the trend. This whole industry is not perfect anyway.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  We can do more than that. If everybody followed the trend, then Lisp would be dead, and we'd all just write Java. shivers
  - behnamoh 10y ago
    I used to think likewise (you can check my previous comments). But at the end of the day, you gotta pay the bills... Nonetheless, I have huge respect for CL. I think I'm gonna learn it well once and for all. (maybe use it for back-end).
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      True 'nuff. I prefer Scheme to CL. The tooling isn't as developed, but Chicken and Guile are both plenty usable, and Scheme is less crufty than CL.

protomyth 10y ago

Who actually owns the Symbolics IP these days? I still wonder if it would be possible to put a 3600 on a chip.

gumby 10y ago
I heard rumor that JCMA had bought it. I'll ask him.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
buttershakes 10y ago
I thought that symbolics was still running in a limited capacity and pulling in money from government contracts. At least that was the case five or six years ago. I know licenses for Genera were being sold as late as 2010 for around 5k. I would be interested to know if this IP changed hands.
bbctol 10y ago
I'm distantly related to the original founder, and have been told this confusing version of the story: Symbolics was bought out buy a different company that then renamed themselves Symbolics, though none of the people remained and the new company just pulled government contract money for "maintenance." Eventually, the IP was owned by a single person named Andrew Topping, who was known to the rest of the world pretty much only by name; no one knows his history. Then he died. Now nobody has any clue who owns the IP, where any useful documentation is, etc...

DigitalJack 10y ago

I get the nostalgia for these machines. I have great nostalgia for my old computers, the ones I learned on. I have watched some videos of open genera. I don't see the appeal. It was neat for the time, but I have a hard time seeing what problems it solves for today. I'm not trolling, if someone can give some specifics, I'd be interested to read them.

starseeker 10y ago

Wonder if there have been any updates since this: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1a4wvf/kalman_reti_the_last_symbolics_developer_speaks/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1a4wvf/kalman_...

Animats 10y ago

I used the Symbolics refrigerator (the 3600) briefly, but found Franz LISP on a Sun II more useful. But then I'm not into editing from a control break.

jmorrison 10y ago

I have an old MacIvory (Symbolics board set housed in a Mac II) which doesn't want to boot anymore. IIRC Googling indicated that the Mac IIs are like cars - they won't turn over if the motherboard battery is dead. I changed the battery - no joy. Anybody have any recommendations, whether for a repair place (New England, USA) or further DIY things to try?