4 ms·
>there hasn't been a free/cheap compiler and IDE for a PC for a very long time One of the first Common Lisp implementations (80s), Kyoto Common Lisp (KCL), was
by flavio81 7y ago
>there hasn't been a free/cheap compiler and IDE for a PC for a very long time
One of the first Common Lisp implementations (80s), Kyoto Common Lisp (KCL), was also free.
One of the highest performing Common Lisp implementations, CMU CL (CMU Common Lisp), has been also free for decades. It is still available and SBCL (the most popular implementation today) is partly based on it.
>LISP has always been an university/research thing running on either on specialized machines or later on Unix
This was only true in the 70s, and only true for the most advanced/modern Lisp dialects like ZetaLisp.
The 80s is a different story.
You can check out the TIOBE index for 1989 -- the 3rd most popular programming language was Lisp, after C and C++. It's also very interesting that ANSI Common Lisp was the first objective-oriented language to get an ANSI standard.
Today you don't need a Unix/linux machine, there are many implementations that run just fine on Windows: ECL, ABCL, SBCL, CCL, and CLISP to name a few. SBCL, ECL and CCL produce native code; SBCL is particularly fast and CCL, while relatively slower, is still a fast implementation.