8 ms·
Lisp Machine Hacking (2018)
- gumby 8y agoI have a friend in Mountain View with a bunch of symbolics machines in his garage. He's in the process of moving house so wants to get rid of them soon. Anybody who wants to give one a good home and can pick one up from Mountain View let me know and I can put you in touch.
- roberte3 8y agoI'd be interested. Username @ googles public email service...
- gumby 8y agoI forwarded this comment to Phil.
- eschaton 8y agoI can pick up in Mountain View immediately, cmh at mac dot com.
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- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ianfinder 8y agoI have been actively repairing and reverse engineering a number of lisp machines from Symbolics- including original L and G machines (36xx). I have working disk emulation, ‘breath of life’ for bringing up new system disks, and a number of folks can probably attest I’m the best home to preserve these long term. I can arrange pickup. I also will keep the systems together, safe from keyboard collectors. Please, get me in touch with your friend. My love of these systems and desire to properly preserve them runs deep: ifinder@outlook.com
- gumby 8y agoI forwarded this comment to Phil.
- tombert 8y agoI would love to get my hands on an old Lisp machine, just to play with it. While there's obviously nothing pragmatic about using one of them nowadays, I think they're an incredibly interesting footnote in computing history, and I always like to think about the "what if?" universe where Lisp-centric architectures were the norm.
- rjsw 8y agoWhy not try one of the emulators ?
- tombert 8y agoI have, and those are fun, but there's something really satisfying with playing with old hardware like that.
- jpmattia 8y ago> I have, and those are fun, but there's something really satisfying with playing with old hardware like that. I'm sorry to inform you that you probably have an unhealthy interest in wirewrapping and should probably seek help. :) On another note, I was overly fond of those old CADR keyboards and would probably spend an irrational amount of money if someone were to bring them back. The ctrl-meta-super-hyper keyset at the bottom of the boards was a much more consistent theme than the mishmash that we're all stuck with in the modern age.
- gumby 8y agoThe only wire-wrapped machines Symbolics shipped were CADRs; all their own designs were PCBs.
- gumby 8y agoThese guys make a lot of limited run keyboards and have thought of doing a space cadet kbd: http://kono.store/ http://kono.store/ . If enough people express interest they'll launch a KS to fund it (they've done quite a few so their track record is pretty good). I wouldn't want a clone of the specific space cadet -- the board flexed too much making it a tiny bit spongey. But a modern clone need not have that problem, and need not have such an absurdly high profile.
- neilv 8y agoMaybe one could build a retro Lisp machine keyboard using the same modular parts as: https://old.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/ https://old.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/
- Lowkeyloki 8y agoI'd pay good money for one. If anyone does this, please let me know.
- neilv 8y agoI think this is totally possible to do as DIY, as seen in that subreddit. :) Anyway, probably someone will do it first, and post a photo series of the steps, and then more who want a new and sustainable Lisp power-user keyboard will be inspired to do it.
- jlarocco 8y agoA while back I picked up a copy of "LISP Lore: A Guide to Programming the LISP Machine" at Goodwill, for $1 The Lisp dialect is dated, and the code isn't runnable on a modern machine, but it's still interesting to see the Lisp idioms and techniques used, the API design, etc. [1] https://www.amazon.com/LISP-Lore-Guide-Programming-Machine-ebook/dp/B00FBHUHQ4/ https://www.amazon.com/LISP-Lore-Guide-Programming-Machine-e...
- mrbill 8y agoAfter I finally bought a copy (at a pretty expensive price), someone uploaded a version to the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/lisploreguidetop00brom https://archive.org/details/lisploreguidetop00brom