4 ms·

Reviving Smalltalk-78 (2014) [pdf]

155 points by pmarin 8y ago

pmarin 8y ago
I found the video of the presentation that Dan Ingall did on smalltalk-78 https://youtu.be/pTh65b8qSY8 https://youtu.be/pTh65b8qSY8
- no_identd 8y ago
  Here's alankay1 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=alankay1 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=alankay1 ) presenting the Alto OS as part of his tribute to Ted Nelson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Great video thanks for sharing it.
patrickg_zill 8y ago
Consider the size of the interpreter and then go load some other JS pages and measure the size of them. Pretty impressive!
scroot 8y ago
Here's a link to the thing running in a browser: https://bertfreudenberg.github.io/Smalltalk78/ https://bertfreudenberg.github.io/Smalltalk78/
- jacquesm 8y ago
  That's very neat. It actually works and from the looks of it has the complete environment including compiler, I managed to mess up the scrollbar on my first try :) You need to get used to the mouse handling for a bit, it's really old school but it's all there.
  - arm 8y ago
    Yep. A tip for anyone not used to old-school mouse handling: when right-clicking to bring up a contextual menu, you need to hold down the right mouse button, then (while still holding down the right mouse button) position the mouse on top of the menu item you want, and finally, let go to select it.
- mromanuk 8y ago
  it work in my iPhone 7!
reaperducer 8y ago
FTA: "The challenge of porting Smalltalk-76 to a microprocessor with only 256k bytes of memory..." Should that be bits, not bytes? 256k bytes was massive in 1976. Even at 8 bits, that would be 16k. I don't know that much about Smalltalk, but that still seems like a lot of space for the era.
- lucidguppy 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto Looks like Alan Kay's baby is loaded with 96-512kb of memory. So it's not a challenge - but seems like an appropriate target. Mind you the Alto was primo - Kay was prototyping the future using a wonderful resource called cash.
  - radiowave 8y ago
    As J. C. R. Licklider put it: "If it is (or were) true that hardware economics double every two years, and if it's true that it takes eight or ten years to get something from the idea stage out into use, it says the researcher who begins working on something has got to be a factor of 16 or 32 ahead of the time in his lavish expenditure of computer resources to do his work, and it takes really enlightened sponsors and supporters to make that possible. And usually it isn't."
  - aidenn0 8y ago
    I've been told that MIT managed to convince DARPA to buy them a full address space (~1MB) of core for a PDP-10 in the 70s. I have no idea how much that cost, but it had to be absurdly expensive. Granted this was a timeshare system, not a workstation, so that makes a huge difference. Also I was talking with someone who wanted to implement a lisp for a microcontroller and we came to the conclusion that it had slightly less storage than the IBM that the original LISP was implemented on in the late 50s, which had a combination of drum and core.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Which is why when people nowadays say that languages with runtime don't fit, that is mostly urban myths as many micro-controllers (naturally not all of them) are like supercomputers in regard to those systems at Xerox and IBM.
mseepgood 8y ago
Why was Smalltalk code always written in Comic Sans?
- bobowzki 8y ago
  Comic Sans was released in 1994. I also wonder about their choice of typeface though...
  - forkerenok 8y ago
    My guess, first half-jokingly now actually real, that it could be a plea to users to not get too serious with it (at least yet).
- mprovost 8y ago
  "The Smalltalk font in the screenshots is Cream by Bob Flegal, based on a design by Alan Kay" Alan Kay: "Actually, Bob Flegal's challenge was to somehow make a script font that kind of looked slanted but was actually straight up. I though he succeeded really well with this design." (http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2004-March/074907.html http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2004-...) It was also the first system font used on the original Mac! (https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Font_Manager.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...)
- scroot 8y ago
  Remember: Smalltalk was invented at PARC where, among other things, they had a broad goal to create systems that didn't exist. GUIs for personal computing prior to this were purely terminal based, with standard monotype faces. These guys were interested in actually printing documents, making animations, music, all kinds of stuff. So they came up with the ability to use different typefaces and used them all over the place.
i_feel_great 8y ago
Also comes with the standard test image of Lena Söderberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna_(test_image) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna_(test_image))
renox 8y ago
Seeing all these efforts to revive old SWs, I find it a little sad that the STEPS project released nearly nothing beside papers..

155 points by pmarin 8y ago

I found the video of the presentation that Dan Ingall did on smalltalk-78 https://youtu.be/pTh65b8qSY8 https://youtu.be/pTh65b8qSY8

no_identd 8y ago
Here's alankay1 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=alankay1 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=alankay1 ) presenting the Alto OS as part of his tribute to Ted Nelson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Great video thanks for sharing it.

patrickg_zill 8y ago

Consider the size of the interpreter and then go load some other JS pages and measure the size of them. Pretty impressive!

scroot 8y ago

Here's a link to the thing running in a browser: https://bertfreudenberg.github.io/Smalltalk78/ https://bertfreudenberg.github.io/Smalltalk78/

jacquesm 8y ago
That's very neat. It actually works and from the looks of it has the complete environment including compiler, I managed to mess up the scrollbar on my first try :) You need to get used to the mouse handling for a bit, it's really old school but it's all there.
- arm 8y ago
  Yep. A tip for anyone not used to old-school mouse handling: when right-clicking to bring up a contextual menu, you need to hold down the right mouse button, then (while still holding down the right mouse button) position the mouse on top of the menu item you want, and finally, let go to select it.
mromanuk 8y ago
it work in my iPhone 7!

reaperducer 8y ago

FTA: "The challenge of porting Smalltalk-76 to a microprocessor with only 256k bytes of memory..." Should that be bits, not bytes? 256k bytes was massive in 1976. Even at 8 bits, that would be 16k. I don't know that much about Smalltalk, but that still seems like a lot of space for the era.

lucidguppy 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto Looks like Alan Kay's baby is loaded with 96-512kb of memory. So it's not a challenge - but seems like an appropriate target. Mind you the Alto was primo - Kay was prototyping the future using a wonderful resource called cash.
- radiowave 8y ago
  As J. C. R. Licklider put it: "If it is (or were) true that hardware economics double every two years, and if it's true that it takes eight or ten years to get something from the idea stage out into use, it says the researcher who begins working on something has got to be a factor of 16 or 32 ahead of the time in his lavish expenditure of computer resources to do his work, and it takes really enlightened sponsors and supporters to make that possible. And usually it isn't."
- aidenn0 8y ago
  I've been told that MIT managed to convince DARPA to buy them a full address space (~1MB) of core for a PDP-10 in the 70s. I have no idea how much that cost, but it had to be absurdly expensive. Granted this was a timeshare system, not a workstation, so that makes a huge difference. Also I was talking with someone who wanted to implement a lisp for a microcontroller and we came to the conclusion that it had slightly less storage than the IBM that the original LISP was implemented on in the late 50s, which had a combination of drum and core.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Which is why when people nowadays say that languages with runtime don't fit, that is mostly urban myths as many micro-controllers (naturally not all of them) are like supercomputers in regard to those systems at Xerox and IBM.

mseepgood 8y ago

Why was Smalltalk code always written in Comic Sans?

bobowzki 8y ago
Comic Sans was released in 1994. I also wonder about their choice of typeface though...
- forkerenok 8y ago
  My guess, first half-jokingly now actually real, that it could be a plea to users to not get too serious with it (at least yet).
mprovost 8y ago
"The Smalltalk font in the screenshots is Cream by Bob Flegal, based on a design by Alan Kay" Alan Kay: "Actually, Bob Flegal's challenge was to somehow make a script font that kind of looked slanted but was actually straight up. I though he succeeded really well with this design." (http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2004-March/074907.html http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2004-...) It was also the first system font used on the original Mac! (https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Font_Manager.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...)
scroot 8y ago
Remember: Smalltalk was invented at PARC where, among other things, they had a broad goal to create systems that didn't exist. GUIs for personal computing prior to this were purely terminal based, with standard monotype faces. These guys were interested in actually printing documents, making animations, music, all kinds of stuff. So they came up with the ability to use different typefaces and used them all over the place.

i_feel_great 8y ago

Also comes with the standard test image of Lena Söderberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna_(test_image) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna_(test_image))

renox 8y ago

Seeing all these efforts to revive old SWs, I find it a little sad that the STEPS project released nearly nothing beside papers..