5 ms·

> 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

by 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.
      - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
        So, on a scale of 1 to 5, where would you put it compared to open/portable Genera regarding 1.) (potential) portability, speed 2.) amount of delivered/contained applications 3.) look&feel/usability 4.) access to full source 5.) price (ignoring time) edit: or use %, 1 to 10, whatever you like
        lispm 5y ago
        To make sure what my point was: any old Lisp Machine software is largely outdated. The MIT Lispm software is BSD. http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/mit/mit_cadr_lmss.html http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/mit/mit_cadr_lmss.html It's very old (>40 years) , had never more than a low hundred users. Dead for decades. No Common Lisp. No TCP/IP. LMI Lispm Software: old, license unclear. TI Lispm software: leaked, uncomplete, no license. Symbolics Lispm software: partly leaked, no license, owner exists, commercially available. Has a Common Lisp implementation. Best Lispm software. Most development stopped mid 90s. Some updates in the last years, due to a new emulator. Emulator was a commercial product. Interlisp/Medley: open sourced after a long time being not available. A Common Lisp version which very few people ever used. Emulator was a commercial product. The software is largely written in Interlisp, a Lisp dialect which has been mostly dead for 35 years with almost no users, no libraries, ... All of these have some very cool technology, but much of it is between 50 and 30 years old. It's not the Lisp for the 'rest of us', it's for hobby software archeologists, for the few people who have capabilities to update them and for the <100 actual users/developers using them for work.
        LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
        Thank you for the explanation. But initially I posted that in answer to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29238005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29238005 where someone asked about if it would make sense to clone/reimplement somthing like Genera. And I pointed out that maybe the next best thing would be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29245984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29245984 With the intent to not having to start from scratch, not necessarily using it as is, but to take inspiration from. Or not, and really pushing it forward instead, but that depends on so many factors. However, it is possible. Besides that, did you really have the impression 'innocent people' had to be warned of the consequences, wasted time, whatever? ;-) Furthermore, either Common Lisp is Common Lisp, or not. So what does it matter, if only few people ever used that? As soon as it's getting graphical there is nothing besides the two commercial vendors(so proprietary), and old McCLIM. So who really cares? There is Movitz and Mezzano, why should there be no effort to make Medley modern? Would McCLIM on steroids be better for SBCL and Clozure? Who knows? I for my part like to look deep into such things, to see how I can adapt the concepts(not necessarily code) into my dabblings on FPGAs. Sometimes I had my mind blown, by things I haven't seen before, didn't even know the possibility thereof. Learning new concepts, applying them. Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bM3Gut1hIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bM3Gut1hIk (not related to topic) Anyway, I like to go back into the roads not taken, to at least partially re-branch from there. There is much to learn from. From that what we have now, not so much.

by lispm 5y ago

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.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
      So, on a scale of 1 to 5, where would you put it compared to open/portable Genera regarding 1.) (potential) portability, speed 2.) amount of delivered/contained applications 3.) look&feel/usability 4.) access to full source 5.) price (ignoring time) edit: or use %, 1 to 10, whatever you like
      - lispm 5y ago
        To make sure what my point was: any old Lisp Machine software is largely outdated. The MIT Lispm software is BSD. http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/mit/mit_cadr_lmss.html http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/mit/mit_cadr_lmss.html It's very old (>40 years) , had never more than a low hundred users. Dead for decades. No Common Lisp. No TCP/IP. LMI Lispm Software: old, license unclear. TI Lispm software: leaked, uncomplete, no license. Symbolics Lispm software: partly leaked, no license, owner exists, commercially available. Has a Common Lisp implementation. Best Lispm software. Most development stopped mid 90s. Some updates in the last years, due to a new emulator. Emulator was a commercial product. Interlisp/Medley: open sourced after a long time being not available. A Common Lisp version which very few people ever used. Emulator was a commercial product. The software is largely written in Interlisp, a Lisp dialect which has been mostly dead for 35 years with almost no users, no libraries, ... All of these have some very cool technology, but much of it is between 50 and 30 years old. It's not the Lisp for the 'rest of us', it's for hobby software archeologists, for the few people who have capabilities to update them and for the <100 actual users/developers using them for work.
        LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
        Thank you for the explanation. But initially I posted that in answer to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29238005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29238005 where someone asked about if it would make sense to clone/reimplement somthing like Genera. And I pointed out that maybe the next best thing would be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29245984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29245984 With the intent to not having to start from scratch, not necessarily using it as is, but to take inspiration from. Or not, and really pushing it forward instead, but that depends on so many factors. However, it is possible. Besides that, did you really have the impression 'innocent people' had to be warned of the consequences, wasted time, whatever? ;-) Furthermore, either Common Lisp is Common Lisp, or not. So what does it matter, if only few people ever used that? As soon as it's getting graphical there is nothing besides the two commercial vendors(so proprietary), and old McCLIM. So who really cares? There is Movitz and Mezzano, why should there be no effort to make Medley modern? Would McCLIM on steroids be better for SBCL and Clozure? Who knows? I for my part like to look deep into such things, to see how I can adapt the concepts(not necessarily code) into my dabblings on FPGAs. Sometimes I had my mind blown, by things I haven't seen before, didn't even know the possibility thereof. Learning new concepts, applying them. Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bM3Gut1hIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bM3Gut1hIk (not related to topic) Anyway, I like to go back into the roads not taken, to at least partially re-branch from there. There is much to learn from. From that what we have now, not so much.