4 ms·

Most of this ”technology” was created at the MIT AI Labs, Genera did a few cool things but in the grand scheme of things it is essentially not much (the Dynami

Most of this ”technology” was created at the MIT AI Labs, Genera did a few cool things but in the grand scheme of things it is essentially not much (the Dynamic Listener probably being the most interesting thing, the rest of the system was essentially the same). The MIT version of the Lisp Machine is free software without any legal conundrums. So there you go …

lispm 2y ago
> rest of the system was essentially the same not true
- amszmidt 2y ago
  Very true, try doing a M-x Source Compare. Genera is backwards compatible with System 99. And any differences are trivial.
  - lispm 2y ago
    I'm looking at a Symbolics file system. Where do I find Dynamic Windows in System 99? Common Lisp? CLOS? The Document Examiner? X11? NFS?
    - amszmidt 2y ago
      Nobody was saying that Genera didn't do anything novel, Dynamic Windows being one, and the Dynamic Listner being another. Overall, the guts are essentially the same, ZMacs, Zmail (also not part of the base System), Flavors, and anything else in the base layer -- to the point that you can compare all of the files that get stuffed into the cold load image without much effort. System 99 has support for Common Lisp. System 301 will hopefully have better support than Genera (seeing that it doesn't really support CL very well anyway) at that. The Document Examiner is a separate system (and LMI did it differently, with Gateway), and not part of the base System. X11, and NFS likewise. So listing a bunch of orthogonal systems isn't really what was being discussed.
      - lispm 2y ago
        The core Symbolics SYSTEM system I see here is version 501.51. It consists of a bunch of other systems like SI, Embedding, L-Bin, Tables, Scheduler, Netboot, Common Lisp, SCT, Garbage Collector, Flavor, Error System, Language Tools, Network, Lisp Compiler, Bitblt, Fonts, FS, Bin, Time, TV, Presentation Substrate, CP, Dynamic Windows, Debugger, I Linker, Fep-FS, ... I don't see much of that in System 99 from MIT. Stuff like X11 and NFS is also not random stuff. Open Genera uses it for its console and its files. > seeing that it doesn't really support CL very well anyway Well enough that it is able to run a lot of its software written in Common Lisp. It's able to run stuff like PCL, ASDF, ITERATE, ... System 99 is from 1984 (?), Symbolics started in 81/82. Open Genera appeared 1992/93. You are ignoring a full decade of development. Earlier: > Genera did a few cool things but in the grand scheme of things it is essentially not much (the Dynamic Listener probably being the most interesting thing, the rest of the system was essentially the same). I would guess that less than 20% of the core SYSTEM is essentially the same (but often quite a bit enhanced). For the rest of the software, I would think it's even less. Which is not surprising, since System 99 did not support the 3600 systems, the G-Machines, the I-machines (XL400, XL1200, XL1201, UX400, UX1200, NXP1000, MacIvory 1/2/3, ...), Open Genera, ..., because all that was developed later by Symbolics.
        amszmidt 2y ago
        SI, Scheduler, GC, Flavor, EH, Compiler, TV, etc all date back to before Symbolics entered the picture. And if you don't see that in System 99 .. then you must not be looking very hard since they are explicitly mentioned there. You mention a bunch of things that are also _not_ part of Genera, specifically bunch of Ivory stuff -- which is just the processor target. > Well enough that it is able to run a lot of its software written in Common Lisp. It's able to run stuff like PCL, ASDF, ITERATE, ... No it is not. You are thinking of Portable Genera. > System 99 is from 1984 (?), Symbolics started in 81/82. Open Genera appeared 1992/93. You are ignoring a full decade of development. System 99.32 is from 1987, which continued via LMI into System 130. Genera, or before when it got forked, is from 1978 when it got forked from System 78 or there about being re-branded into System 200. All three (four if you count TI -- which did quite more in renaming things making it hard to follow) with parallel development going on from there into the early 1990s. Genera is a Lisp Machine system based on the work done at MIT, where most of the guts still the same. To the point that how you rebootstrap the system is the same, how the core areas look work, how the scheduler works, how the windowing system works, how flavours works, etc. Open Genera did very little on top of Genera at that, mostly targeting and making it work on the Ivory. You are purposefully conflating Portable Genera, Open Genera and Genera.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  I usually decry this sort of response and as virtually useless and not letting to fruitful discussion. However I have to commend lispm and amszmidt on having a fascinating (if tense) discussion on the history of Genera and its variants.

lispm 2y ago

> rest of the system was essentially the same not true

amszmidt 2y ago
Very true, try doing a M-x Source Compare. Genera is backwards compatible with System 99. And any differences are trivial.
- lispm 2y ago
  I'm looking at a Symbolics file system. Where do I find Dynamic Windows in System 99? Common Lisp? CLOS? The Document Examiner? X11? NFS?
  - amszmidt 2y ago
    Nobody was saying that Genera didn't do anything novel, Dynamic Windows being one, and the Dynamic Listner being another. Overall, the guts are essentially the same, ZMacs, Zmail (also not part of the base System), Flavors, and anything else in the base layer -- to the point that you can compare all of the files that get stuffed into the cold load image without much effort. System 99 has support for Common Lisp. System 301 will hopefully have better support than Genera (seeing that it doesn't really support CL very well anyway) at that. The Document Examiner is a separate system (and LMI did it differently, with Gateway), and not part of the base System. X11, and NFS likewise. So listing a bunch of orthogonal systems isn't really what was being discussed.
    - lispm 2y ago
      The core Symbolics SYSTEM system I see here is version 501.51. It consists of a bunch of other systems like SI, Embedding, L-Bin, Tables, Scheduler, Netboot, Common Lisp, SCT, Garbage Collector, Flavor, Error System, Language Tools, Network, Lisp Compiler, Bitblt, Fonts, FS, Bin, Time, TV, Presentation Substrate, CP, Dynamic Windows, Debugger, I Linker, Fep-FS, ... I don't see much of that in System 99 from MIT. Stuff like X11 and NFS is also not random stuff. Open Genera uses it for its console and its files. > seeing that it doesn't really support CL very well anyway Well enough that it is able to run a lot of its software written in Common Lisp. It's able to run stuff like PCL, ASDF, ITERATE, ... System 99 is from 1984 (?), Symbolics started in 81/82. Open Genera appeared 1992/93. You are ignoring a full decade of development. Earlier: > Genera did a few cool things but in the grand scheme of things it is essentially not much (the Dynamic Listener probably being the most interesting thing, the rest of the system was essentially the same). I would guess that less than 20% of the core SYSTEM is essentially the same (but often quite a bit enhanced). For the rest of the software, I would think it's even less. Which is not surprising, since System 99 did not support the 3600 systems, the G-Machines, the I-machines (XL400, XL1200, XL1201, UX400, UX1200, NXP1000, MacIvory 1/2/3, ...), Open Genera, ..., because all that was developed later by Symbolics.
      - amszmidt 2y ago
        SI, Scheduler, GC, Flavor, EH, Compiler, TV, etc all date back to before Symbolics entered the picture. And if you don't see that in System 99 .. then you must not be looking very hard since they are explicitly mentioned there. You mention a bunch of things that are also _not_ part of Genera, specifically bunch of Ivory stuff -- which is just the processor target. > Well enough that it is able to run a lot of its software written in Common Lisp. It's able to run stuff like PCL, ASDF, ITERATE, ... No it is not. You are thinking of Portable Genera. > System 99 is from 1984 (?), Symbolics started in 81/82. Open Genera appeared 1992/93. You are ignoring a full decade of development. System 99.32 is from 1987, which continued via LMI into System 130. Genera, or before when it got forked, is from 1978 when it got forked from System 78 or there about being re-branded into System 200. All three (four if you count TI -- which did quite more in renaming things making it hard to follow) with parallel development going on from there into the early 1990s. Genera is a Lisp Machine system based on the work done at MIT, where most of the guts still the same. To the point that how you rebootstrap the system is the same, how the core areas look work, how the scheduler works, how the windowing system works, how flavours works, etc. Open Genera did very little on top of Genera at that, mostly targeting and making it work on the Ivory. You are purposefully conflating Portable Genera, Open Genera and Genera.
Y_Y 2y ago
I usually decry this sort of response and as virtually useless and not letting to fruitful discussion. However I have to commend lispm and amszmidt on having a fascinating (if tense) discussion on the history of Genera and its variants.