7 ms·

I have the same dream. A part of me wishes Richard Stallman set out on making a Lisp OS instead of making a Unix clone, but this was the mid-1980s and thus I u

I have the same dream. A part of me wishes Richard Stallman set out on making a Lisp OS instead of making a Unix clone, but this was the mid-1980s and thus I understand the technical limitations and the social environment of the time. The 1990s could’ve been a better time; workstations and commodity PCs were powerful enough to run an entire Lisp or Smalltalk operating system, and there would’ve been substantial interest in such a system. Imagine had we ended up with a free, open source Lisp or Smalltalk OS running on the Pentium and PowerPC machines of the era as an alternative to Linux and the BSDs. I think this would’ve been an easier foundation to develop a FOSS desktop instead of the X11/KDE/GNOME/Wayland situation we have today. But the dream isn’t dead. If only I had more free time…

lproven 3y ago
> A part of me wishes Richard Stallman set out on making a Lisp OS instead of making a Unix clone Oh so very much so, yes!
melvinroest 3y ago
Apply to YC for fun and see if they'll fund you. It's a long shot due to the non-commercial nature. But who knows? If you do, include me in it. I'm not the best OS dev, but I do know Pharo. I'm up for making a YC application if you are! ;-) My email is in my profile if you'd want to entertain this idea.
morphle 3y ago
The dream isn't dead, a number of people are working on it. Several live systems are demonstrated in talks on Youtube. There are several working systems and even a real OS with native device drivers on modern bare hardware. You can run legacy code under its qemu sandbox, but that is added only to broaden its appeal to customers as this part is not 'live'.
- infinite8s 3y ago
  Sadly the work from the STEPS project seems to have disappeared, especially the Frank software he used in some talks. That looks like it would have been very interesting to play with.
  - lproven 3y ago
    > Sadly the work from the STEPS project seems to have disappeared Unfortunately that phrase -- steps project -- is effectively un-Googleable. Do you have a link at all please?
    - morphle 3y ago
      search/google "steps alan kay" or watch https://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/video/lecture-putting-turing-to-work.html https://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/video/lecture-putt...
  - morphle 3y ago
    I have most of the Frank/STEPS code still running. I posted a lot about it before on HN. Yes, its a lot of fun to play with it, I invite people to join in the fun. 20.000 Lines of code for almost all of personal computing.
    - infinite8s 3y ago
      Thanks, do you have any of it publicly available or would you prefer an email?
      - morphle 3y ago
        Not all is publicly available and most needs recompiling and explanation. I prefer email.
        lproven 3y ago
        The email address in your profile is bouncing: [email redacted] host mx02.mail.icloud.com [17.42.251.62] SMTP error from remote mail server after pipelined end of data: 554 5.7.1 [CS01] Message rejected due to local policy. Please visit https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204137
        3y ago

lproven 3y ago

> A part of me wishes Richard Stallman set out on making a Lisp OS instead of making a Unix clone Oh so very much so, yes!

melvinroest 3y ago

Apply to YC for fun and see if they'll fund you. It's a long shot due to the non-commercial nature. But who knows? If you do, include me in it. I'm not the best OS dev, but I do know Pharo. I'm up for making a YC application if you are! ;-) My email is in my profile if you'd want to entertain this idea.

morphle 3y ago

The dream isn't dead, a number of people are working on it. Several live systems are demonstrated in talks on Youtube. There are several working systems and even a real OS with native device drivers on modern bare hardware. You can run legacy code under its qemu sandbox, but that is added only to broaden its appeal to customers as this part is not 'live'.

infinite8s 3y ago
Sadly the work from the STEPS project seems to have disappeared, especially the Frank software he used in some talks. That looks like it would have been very interesting to play with.
- lproven 3y ago
  > Sadly the work from the STEPS project seems to have disappeared Unfortunately that phrase -- steps project -- is effectively un-Googleable. Do you have a link at all please?
  - morphle 3y ago
    search/google "steps alan kay" or watch https://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/video/lecture-putting-turing-to-work.html https://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/video/lecture-putt...
- morphle 3y ago
  I have most of the Frank/STEPS code still running. I posted a lot about it before on HN. Yes, its a lot of fun to play with it, I invite people to join in the fun. 20.000 Lines of code for almost all of personal computing.
  - infinite8s 3y ago
    Thanks, do you have any of it publicly available or would you prefer an email?
    - morphle 3y ago
      Not all is publicly available and most needs recompiling and explanation. I prefer email.
      - lproven 3y ago
        The email address in your profile is bouncing: [email redacted] host mx02.mail.icloud.com [17.42.251.62] SMTP error from remote mail server after pipelined end of data: 554 5.7.1 [CS01] Message rejected due to local policy. Please visit https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204137
        3y ago