6 ms·

A few things I know about Lisp Machines

85 points by gkya 9y ago

brudgers 9y ago
The archived version, https://web.archive.org/web/20171014113120/http://fare.tunes.org/LispM.html https://web.archive.org/web/20171014113120/http://fare.tunes...
pmoriarty 9y ago
Video of a Symbolics Lisp Machine (in Brad Parker's emulator).[1] Not surprisingly, it looks a lot like Emacs (or vice-versa). [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk
- lispm 9y ago
  Because it uses rectangles and text? The Symbolics UI looks&feels nothing like Emacs. Zmacs is just ONE application on it. Applications are not Zmacs buffer modes. The shown applications, Listener and Peek are not Zmacs buffers or windows. Neither one uses Zmacs buffers/windows. If you look at the Listener application window: * it has no terminal mode * it has no minibuffer * it has no meta-x commands * it is fully graphical (postscript compatible drawing model) * you can't split it * it has no menubar * it has no iconbar * it has no modes, it is just a Lisp listener and a command interpreter * it is not an editor window and not an editor buffer, you can't edit the text printed to it * for each output it remembers the Lisp objects * for each input it can reuse the Lisp objects * since it is a window, you can resize/move it * you can only type commands and s-expressions to it, and they will be parsed online
nv-vn 9y ago
Not sure of a good place to ask this but I've been wondering for a few years, so I'll try again in this thread. Does anyone know where to purchase a Symbolics machine in 2017? Is anyone here looking to sell their LispM?
- fractallyte 9y ago
  If you're in London, UK, there's a guy in Kent who has a stash of Lisp machines... Previous comment (mine): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7878679#7882337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7878679#7882337
  - rjsw 9y ago
    It was a long time ago that I contacted him but he didn't seem very interested in naming a price for one.
watmough 9y ago
I had to scan over that page a few time to put a date on it! Seeing a price of $1100 for a IIfx was pretty disorienting, when I was shown the invoice to a IIfx system I was using back in about 92, that was in the region of 8 - 10,000 GBP. I guess the depreciation from '92 through Y2K accounts for that. Similar depreciation accounts for the $900 price tag on the 32 GByte dual E5-2690 workstation under my desk...

85 points by gkya 9y ago

The archived version, https://web.archive.org/web/20171014113120/http://fare.tunes.org/LispM.html https://web.archive.org/web/20171014113120/http://fare.tunes...

pmoriarty 9y ago

Video of a Symbolics Lisp Machine (in Brad Parker's emulator).[1] Not surprisingly, it looks a lot like Emacs (or vice-versa). [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk

lispm 9y ago
Because it uses rectangles and text? The Symbolics UI looks&feels nothing like Emacs. Zmacs is just ONE application on it. Applications are not Zmacs buffer modes. The shown applications, Listener and Peek are not Zmacs buffers or windows. Neither one uses Zmacs buffers/windows. If you look at the Listener application window: * it has no terminal mode * it has no minibuffer * it has no meta-x commands * it is fully graphical (postscript compatible drawing model) * you can't split it * it has no menubar * it has no iconbar * it has no modes, it is just a Lisp listener and a command interpreter * it is not an editor window and not an editor buffer, you can't edit the text printed to it * for each output it remembers the Lisp objects * for each input it can reuse the Lisp objects * since it is a window, you can resize/move it * you can only type commands and s-expressions to it, and they will be parsed online

nv-vn 9y ago

Not sure of a good place to ask this but I've been wondering for a few years, so I'll try again in this thread. Does anyone know where to purchase a Symbolics machine in 2017? Is anyone here looking to sell their LispM?

fractallyte 9y ago
If you're in London, UK, there's a guy in Kent who has a stash of Lisp machines... Previous comment (mine): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7878679#7882337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7878679#7882337
- rjsw 9y ago
  It was a long time ago that I contacted him but he didn't seem very interested in naming a price for one.

watmough 9y ago

I had to scan over that page a few time to put a date on it! Seeing a price of $1100 for a IIfx was pretty disorienting, when I was shown the invoice to a IIfx system I was using back in about 92, that was in the region of 8 - 10,000 GBP. I guess the depreciation from '92 through Y2K accounts for that. Similar depreciation accounts for the $900 price tag on the 32 GByte dual E5-2690 workstation under my desk...