3 ms·

> ...one potential alternate version of Apple I could imagine would be some sort of Lisp OS with a Mac interface...Unfortunately, the AI winter of the late 1980

by gumby 3y ago

> ...one potential alternate version of Apple I could imagine would be some sort of Lisp OS with a Mac interface...Unfortunately, the AI winter of the late 1980s and 1990s severely damaged the Lisp market... Your order is messed up: work on Dylan commenced years after that AI Winter had begun.

linguae 3y ago
Yeah, I should’ve clarified regarding Apple, which wasn’t in the Lisp workstation market. Apple’s departure from Lisp has little to do with the AI winter (though Hacker News commenters lispm and mikelevins may have a lot more insight given their expertise and the fact that the latter worked on Lisp projects at Apple). Rather, I believe Apple’s departure has to do with Steve Jobs’ return. Apple was an unfocused beacon of innovation in the 1990s, with many competing visions for the future of the Mac and the company. When Steve Jobs returned, the vision became unified under him: the technical underpinnings of the Mac were based on NeXT technology, and other competing visions (such as OpenDoc) were discarded.