5 ms·

Portable Genera on a current MacBook is about 80 times faster than the last hardware-based Genera.

• mietek 5y ago
  If only mere mortals could get hold of it…
  • LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    There is the possibility of ending the snobbery of the entitled by going this way: [1] https://interlisp.org/ https://interlisp.org/ & [2] https://github.com/interlisp https://github.com/interlisp Thereby uplifting this environment to current systems without layers upon layers of emulation, fully and legally open-sourced.
    • lispm 5y ago
      This is also an emulator. Interlisp uses an emulator written in C and output goes to X11. Open Genera and Portable Genera use an emulator written in assembler (running on DEC Alpha, X86-64 and ARM64 - for the CPU emulation) and output goes to X11.
      • LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
        As far as I understood it, at first people used the Tru64 emulated Open Genera under Alpha emulation running on some older Ubuntu running on X86-64. That was years ago. Maybe that got some refinements. Is the portable Genera directly retargeted to X86-64 now? And does it matter if it's practically unavailable? edit: OFC i know Interlisp-D/Medley is also an emulation. But directly retargeted, and legally open source. And not 'production ready', for now. But seems to be only a matter of time.
        • lispm 5y ago
          > at first people used used the Tru64 emulated Open Genera People I know used it on original DEC Alphas and on Alpha emulators running under Windows. The new version, called Portable Genera, has three assembler Ivory emulator versions: DEC Alpha, Intel x86-64 and ARM64. > And does it matter if it's practically unavailable? There are a few users.
          • LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
            Good for them. Uninteresting for the rest of us, if it's unavailable.
            • lispm 5y ago
              Depends who that 'us' is. If 'us' is a typical Lisp user, then I doubt that any of the older systems is actually 'interesting' beyond software archeology. I think this 'us' better uses something like SBCL (+ whatever), instead of the old systems, available or not. Or Racket, CLojure, or whatever new language has enough mindshare to create an eco-system.
              • LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
                While that is a pragmatic point of view I can perfectly understand, this doesn't satisfy the urge to bask in the nimbus of the 'awesome integration', and thereby the gained power & speed of doing whatever ones whims compel one to dabble within such environments. Without having to break the bank, or being otherwise artificially constrained. Yes? ;-)
                • lispm 5y ago
                  Just making sure to innocent readers here: the stuff is really old and it shows. The software was developed, designed and grown in another time. Understanding the 'awesome integration' or the 'power & speed' isn't easy. One can look at that stuff for a long time and still have no idea why these features are there, how to use them in actual programming and how they were hacked into the big pile of mud one has just downloaded from the Internet. The Lisp software was designed for customers with deep pockets to get development & maintenance done. Once the money went away, this stuff died. Some early and some slightly later. It's like finding another old Egyptian pyramid and thinking 'let's clean it and use it again'. Unfortunately the builders and original users are mostly no longer there.