4 ms·

All I meant by bringing up the web browser is that for a personal computer to be usable in reality by a lot of people they'll need a web browser. But just that

by scroot 9y ago

All I meant by bringing up the web browser is that for a personal computer to be usable in reality by a lot of people they'll need a web browser. But just that user application alone gets them really far: email, office productivity, etc. It's a good first application to have in any system. Therefore we could have all kinds of exotic, bespoke personal computers again, except that unlike the 80s and 90s we now have fairly standardized formats across systems. This gives us the freedom to make whatever kinds of architectures and OSes we want. In this case, that could even include a machine whose board is designed from the ground up to run Lisp or Smalltalk or something we evolve out of those as its operating system. The web browser that would come with such a default system would be written in one of those languages. Yes, I know making a web browser is an enormous undertaking, but at least some totally new personal computing system wouldn't have to then also implement office productivity etc.

mbrock 9y ago
Agreed. I think the best way would be to use Linux as the kernel, maybe with Wayland for display, and Chromium/Firefox in a sandbox, and then the custom OS system running alongside this. Emacs with the Elisp window manager is an example.
- scroot 9y ago
  I don't think we're on the same page here. You don't need Linux for the kernel. Insofar as there's a kernel, it's the programming environment itself (like Smalltalk) or a set of primitive programs written in that environment (like Lisp). For graphics you don't need X or Wayland or any of that stuff. BitBlt was able to handle graphics in Smalltalk, because the hardware of the Alto (via microcode) was setup to allow Smalltalk to handle all graphics. If you truly wanted something optimized, something like Nile/Gezira and DSLs written in the environment could work too. The whole point is that such a system would need to be redesigned and rebuilt from the hardware level on up. A difficult task, to be sure, but the reward is invaluable: the ability to reason about the entire system through the system itself.
  - mbrock 9y ago
    Oh. For me it's just pointless drudgery to remake everything like that. I want a new fully coherent and portable system using an existing kernel and graphics layer for bootstrapping. I mean, Emacs or Squeak are already almost there as far as I'm concerned.

by scroot 9y ago

mbrock 9y ago

Agreed. I think the best way would be to use Linux as the kernel, maybe with Wayland for display, and Chromium/Firefox in a sandbox, and then the custom OS system running alongside this. Emacs with the Elisp window manager is an example.

scroot 9y ago
I don't think we're on the same page here. You don't need Linux for the kernel. Insofar as there's a kernel, it's the programming environment itself (like Smalltalk) or a set of primitive programs written in that environment (like Lisp). For graphics you don't need X or Wayland or any of that stuff. BitBlt was able to handle graphics in Smalltalk, because the hardware of the Alto (via microcode) was setup to allow Smalltalk to handle all graphics. If you truly wanted something optimized, something like Nile/Gezira and DSLs written in the environment could work too. The whole point is that such a system would need to be redesigned and rebuilt from the hardware level on up. A difficult task, to be sure, but the reward is invaluable: the ability to reason about the entire system through the system itself.
- mbrock 9y ago
  Oh. For me it's just pointless drudgery to remake everything like that. I want a new fully coherent and portable system using an existing kernel and graphics layer for bootstrapping. I mean, Emacs or Squeak are already almost there as far as I'm concerned.