3 ms·

Why not try one of the emulators ?

by rjsw 8y ago

tombert 8y ago
I 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 ago
    The only wire-wrapped machines Symbolics shipped were CADRs; all their own designs were PCBs.
  - gumby 8y ago
    These 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 ago
  I'm with you. Some older hardware often not only has a nice aesthetic and impressiveness, but it also has functional details that are lost in emulators/ports/etc. That said, one can get a lot of neat experience by playing with things like a Common Lisp implementation with SLIME, or even really learning your way around Emacs Lisp development (it's long had some pretty powerful programming tools for a dynamic environment). Similarly, something like Squeak can give you a lot of the Smalltalk-80 dynamic environment experience. If you want to play with Lisp power of syntax extension and minilanguages/DSLs, CL or Emacs Lisp will let you do that with things like `defmacro`. Racket (which is not as dynamic) has a spin I like even more, emphasizing things like `syntax-case` and `syntax-parse`, along with `#lang`, and a solid integration with the module&phase system. (A sad story: When I was a teen, one day in the entryway of a CS department, (coincidentally taking an OOP class in C++ and Smalltalk) there were pallets or carts stacked with then-vintage Tektronix machines and maybe some TI machines, like the kind that likely ran Smalltalk and/or Lisp. I stopped and gazed wistfully, but I was super-busy, and didn't go ask the sysadmin how I could give some of them a good home. Now I kick myself, like you never forget that time you realized after it was too late that your crush was interested, and you wonder what might have been.)

Why not try one of the emulators ?

by rjsw 8y ago

Why not try one of the emulators ?

tombert 8y ago

I 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 ago
  The only wire-wrapped machines Symbolics shipped were CADRs; all their own designs were PCBs.
- gumby 8y ago
  These 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 ago
I'm with you. Some older hardware often not only has a nice aesthetic and impressiveness, but it also has functional details that are lost in emulators/ports/etc. That said, one can get a lot of neat experience by playing with things like a Common Lisp implementation with SLIME, or even really learning your way around Emacs Lisp development (it's long had some pretty powerful programming tools for a dynamic environment). Similarly, something like Squeak can give you a lot of the Smalltalk-80 dynamic environment experience. If you want to play with Lisp power of syntax extension and minilanguages/DSLs, CL or Emacs Lisp will let you do that with things like `defmacro`. Racket (which is not as dynamic) has a spin I like even more, emphasizing things like `syntax-case` and `syntax-parse`, along with `#lang`, and a solid integration with the module&phase system. (A sad story: When I was a teen, one day in the entryway of a CS department, (coincidentally taking an OOP class in C++ and Smalltalk) there were pallets or carts stacked with then-vintage Tektronix machines and maybe some TI machines, like the kind that likely ran Smalltalk and/or Lisp. I stopped and gazed wistfully, but I was super-busy, and didn't go ask the sysadmin how I could give some of them a good home. Now I kick myself, like you never forget that time you realized after it was too late that your crush was interested, and you wonder what might have been.)