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Ever since I found out about Lisp machines I've been a bit obsessed with them. When I got the leaked distribution of Symbolics Genera going in Linux I felt like

Ever since I found out about Lisp machines I've been a bit obsessed with them. When I got the leaked distribution of Symbolics Genera going in Linux I felt like I was in possession of a crashed UFO. The user experience of the Listener, with its rich output (almost a "scrolling desktop") was exactly what I wanted from a command line. As I imagined what that system would be like if development had continued I started getting so many ideas, it was thrilling. And at that time I hardly knew Lisp! What excited me was the user experience of the Listener, the notion of programming being a way to use the computer, not just to construct software - and the way each piece of software in the system was practically an API for my own use. This was sci-fi stuff to me, extremely inspiring. I don't know how we could move towards the creation of modern Lisp machines. Disappointingly for this old Amiga user, we don't really have regular computers that aren't ugly old x86 any more. But I think about trying to work these ideas into my software development all the time. Genera had such an impact on me I can't avoid it.

digi_owl 9y ago
Consider then that it was what RMS lived and breathed for years. Also i feel that to a more limited sense this is what draws people to the unix CLI. And in turn what sold OSX to academia beyond media production courses. And something that both Apple and Linux userland programmers ignore at their peril.
msla 9y ago
> Disappointingly for this old Amiga user, we don't really have regular computers that aren't ugly old x86 any more. A Raspberry Pi is "regular computer" enough for me, at least as a hack platform. Ditto all the other ARM SBCs which are largely similar. (Odroid is fairly nice, too.) The special microcoded systems are dead, but ARM is a nice enough design and it's available from a ton of different sources.
vram22 9y ago
>the notion of programming being a way to use the computer, not just to construct software - and the way each piece of software in the system was practically an API for my own use. I've never used a Lisp machine, but based on your description, it sounds like the experience of using them might have been somewhat like using the Oberon system created by Niklaus Wirth- or the other way around (based on a BYTE magazine article [1] about Oberon that I read, IIRC - never used Oberon either). [1] I thought so because this part of your comment: >the way each piece of software in the system was practically an API for my own use matched somewhat with something I read in that BYTE article, which was something to the effect that once you had written a subroutine in Oberon, it could be called from anywhere in the OS. IOW, in a sense, the whole OS was like a single program, that you could program. Cool concept. Though the Oberon system might have been much less evolved, or whatever - as I said, used neither, just interested in the thing. P.S. From the Wikipedia article about Wirth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Wirth#Humor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Wirth#Humor [ Wirth has reportedly told the joke that, because Europeans pronounce his name properly, while Americans pronounce it as "nickel's worth", he is called by name in Europe and called by value in America. ]
- lispm 9y ago
  Oberon was already a later software. Earlier Wirth designed a personal workstation called Lilith with a stack-architecture CPU and Modula-2 as its system programming language. This was in many ways similar to Smalltalk or Lisp Machines, but with reduced complexity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith_(computer)
  - vram22 9y ago
    Interesting. I do seem to remember that there was a BYTE magazine article about the Lilith computer too (or maybe I read about it somewhere else, it was a while ago). Also remember some issue(s) of BYTE that had articles about stack machines, which were a bit of a rage at one time, I think. I had read a bit about some of the pros and cons at the time. Also seem to remember that the JVM implements a stack machine. Edit: Looked it up - the JVM does seem to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_machine#Commercial_stack_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_machine#Commercial_stack...
- pjmlp 9y ago
  I had access to the Native Oberon version during the 90's. Oberon was inspired by Mesa/Cedar, there are quite a few Xerox papers about how Mesa/Cedar used to work. This is probably the most relevant one. Think about a Lisp/Smalltalk environment, but based on a strong typed language instead. Regarding Oberon, it had similar ideas. Basically there were no programs, only modules (strong typed dynamic libraries). Any procedure/function that had a special type signature could be called from the CLI environment, UI action, or after selecting an UI element, depending on the way the mouse buttons were used. Also the environment was focused on graphics not plain text. The last version before Active Oberon was introduced, System 3 with Gadgets, had quite nice Amiga style GUI. You can find tons of screenshots on my site.
  - vram22 9y ago
    >Basically there were no programs, only modules (strong typed dynamic libraries). >Any procedure/function that had a special type signature could be called from the CLI environment, UI action, or after selecting an UI element, depending on the way the mouse buttons were used. >Also the environment was focused on graphics not plain text. Pretty cool. Thanks for mentioning it. >You can find tons of screenshots on my site. I googled for your HN username + " site"; is it this one: http://www.progtools.org/blog.php http://www.progtools.org/blog.php ?

digi_owl 9y ago

Consider then that it was what RMS lived and breathed for years. Also i feel that to a more limited sense this is what draws people to the unix CLI. And in turn what sold OSX to academia beyond media production courses. And something that both Apple and Linux userland programmers ignore at their peril.

msla 9y ago

> Disappointingly for this old Amiga user, we don't really have regular computers that aren't ugly old x86 any more. A Raspberry Pi is "regular computer" enough for me, at least as a hack platform. Ditto all the other ARM SBCs which are largely similar. (Odroid is fairly nice, too.) The special microcoded systems are dead, but ARM is a nice enough design and it's available from a ton of different sources.

vram22 9y ago

>the notion of programming being a way to use the computer, not just to construct software - and the way each piece of software in the system was practically an API for my own use. I've never used a Lisp machine, but based on your description, it sounds like the experience of using them might have been somewhat like using the Oberon system created by Niklaus Wirth- or the other way around (based on a BYTE magazine article [1] about Oberon that I read, IIRC - never used Oberon either). [1] I thought so because this part of your comment: >the way each piece of software in the system was practically an API for my own use matched somewhat with something I read in that BYTE article, which was something to the effect that once you had written a subroutine in Oberon, it could be called from anywhere in the OS. IOW, in a sense, the whole OS was like a single program, that you could program. Cool concept. Though the Oberon system might have been much less evolved, or whatever - as I said, used neither, just interested in the thing. P.S. From the Wikipedia article about Wirth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Wirth#Humor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Wirth#Humor [ Wirth has reportedly told the joke that, because Europeans pronounce his name properly, while Americans pronounce it as "nickel's worth", he is called by name in Europe and called by value in America. ]

lispm 9y ago
Oberon was already a later software. Earlier Wirth designed a personal workstation called Lilith with a stack-architecture CPU and Modula-2 as its system programming language. This was in many ways similar to Smalltalk or Lisp Machines, but with reduced complexity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith_(computer)
- vram22 9y ago
  Interesting. I do seem to remember that there was a BYTE magazine article about the Lilith computer too (or maybe I read about it somewhere else, it was a while ago). Also remember some issue(s) of BYTE that had articles about stack machines, which were a bit of a rage at one time, I think. I had read a bit about some of the pros and cons at the time. Also seem to remember that the JVM implements a stack machine. Edit: Looked it up - the JVM does seem to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_machine#Commercial_stack_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_machine#Commercial_stack...
pjmlp 9y ago
I had access to the Native Oberon version during the 90's. Oberon was inspired by Mesa/Cedar, there are quite a few Xerox papers about how Mesa/Cedar used to work. This is probably the most relevant one. Think about a Lisp/Smalltalk environment, but based on a strong typed language instead. Regarding Oberon, it had similar ideas. Basically there were no programs, only modules (strong typed dynamic libraries). Any procedure/function that had a special type signature could be called from the CLI environment, UI action, or after selecting an UI element, depending on the way the mouse buttons were used. Also the environment was focused on graphics not plain text. The last version before Active Oberon was introduced, System 3 with Gadgets, had quite nice Amiga style GUI. You can find tons of screenshots on my site.
- vram22 9y ago
  >Basically there were no programs, only modules (strong typed dynamic libraries). >Any procedure/function that had a special type signature could be called from the CLI environment, UI action, or after selecting an UI element, depending on the way the mouse buttons were used. >Also the environment was focused on graphics not plain text. Pretty cool. Thanks for mentioning it. >You can find tons of screenshots on my site. I googled for your HN username + " site"; is it this one: http://www.progtools.org/blog.php http://www.progtools.org/blog.php ?