3 ms·

I've read in the past Unix Hater's handbook, but I'm to young to have ever used LispM... I only see very few demos and feel Emacs like a poor's man remnant of t

by xte 8y ago

I've read in the past Unix Hater's handbook, but I'm to young to have ever used LispM... I only see very few demos and feel Emacs like a poor's man remnant of them. I do not really know how much we lost. However, for a rare circumstance my first computer was a decommissioned SGI O₂ donated by family friend so I have the privilege of having use SGI CDE as my first desktop environment and growing up I see how much we lost, even in PC case vs what I call "normal" well designed case with easy access and proper components and cables pass layout...

agumonkey 8y ago
I never used LispM either, and the newsgroup I mentioned had messages from people that weren't even lispers but got their hands on one lisp machine and they had to admit there was something. That's the way of the world, things wave off, we follow along, unix won, wintel won, but that doesn't mean they were absolutely better, nor that we can't bring other good stuff from the past. We just have to keep an open mind.
- xte 8y ago
  I'll try to look for them :-)
anthk 8y ago
> I have the privilege of having use SGI CDE as my first desktop environment and growing up I see how much we lost, Not much. IceWM was already ahead of MWM, and Synaptic was almost a clone of the SGI graphical package manager. I mean, DFM and IceWM were good enough. No vector icons, but the usability was many times better than you think. CDE was overrated. MS inverted LOADS of money in order to generate an easy interface. The W95 one is basically a clean TWM iconbar one. And no one realized that that setup was many times better than Windows 3.1 . A shame.
- xte 8y ago
  At that time I was a young curious teenager, I discover "computers" later due to my parents choices, what I can really tell is that when I start to suffer the fact that my shiny, noisy, big workstation can't play enough game (after years of "use") and I finally obtain my first PC with the newly exited Windows XP well... It was a traumatic change... In few months I decide to try FreeBSD to have a "modern usable OS" and it was another shock. After I tried with the help of a high school teacher Red Hat 9, I do not really like it so much but start to be an usable replacement for Irix for my needs and desire... After Debian potatoes, Sarge, Gentoo, back again to FreeBSD when 2.6 linux start to came to life, after SUN with Solaris 9 etc... Well I still feel the miss of Irix TODAY even if I never really know it nor really used it. When I first arrive to Solaris (CDE) I feel the same stability and power sensation that I was feeling on Irix and I lost this sensation with OpenSolaris. I still miss it. really. Even now with EXWM and NixOS as bootloader I still miss "a damn usable OS"...

by xte 8y ago

agumonkey 8y ago

I never used LispM either, and the newsgroup I mentioned had messages from people that weren't even lispers but got their hands on one lisp machine and they had to admit there was something. That's the way of the world, things wave off, we follow along, unix won, wintel won, but that doesn't mean they were absolutely better, nor that we can't bring other good stuff from the past. We just have to keep an open mind.

xte 8y ago
I'll try to look for them :-)

anthk 8y ago

> I have the privilege of having use SGI CDE as my first desktop environment and growing up I see how much we lost, Not much. IceWM was already ahead of MWM, and Synaptic was almost a clone of the SGI graphical package manager. I mean, DFM and IceWM were good enough. No vector icons, but the usability was many times better than you think. CDE was overrated. MS inverted LOADS of money in order to generate an easy interface. The W95 one is basically a clean TWM iconbar one. And no one realized that that setup was many times better than Windows 3.1 . A shame.

xte 8y ago
At that time I was a young curious teenager, I discover "computers" later due to my parents choices, what I can really tell is that when I start to suffer the fact that my shiny, noisy, big workstation can't play enough game (after years of "use") and I finally obtain my first PC with the newly exited Windows XP well... It was a traumatic change... In few months I decide to try FreeBSD to have a "modern usable OS" and it was another shock. After I tried with the help of a high school teacher Red Hat 9, I do not really like it so much but start to be an usable replacement for Irix for my needs and desire... After Debian potatoes, Sarge, Gentoo, back again to FreeBSD when 2.6 linux start to came to life, after SUN with Solaris 9 etc... Well I still feel the miss of Irix TODAY even if I never really know it nor really used it. When I first arrive to Solaris (CDE) I feel the same stability and power sensation that I was feeling on Irix and I lost this sensation with OpenSolaris. I still miss it. really. Even now with EXWM and NixOS as bootloader I still miss "a damn usable OS"...