5 ms·

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, Co

by 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.
- lispm 2y ago
  I have literally started a VLM (Portable Genera 2.0.6) with a Genera 9.0.6 world. In the "herald" the software says that it is running Genera 9.0.6. You can claim "You are purposefully conflating Portable Genera, Open Genera and Genera.", but I'm actually looking at it now and you don't. Please don't tell me this BS, when I'm right now reading the screen in front of me. > You mention a bunch of things that are also _not_ part of Genera Of course they are. I have the thing right in front of me, running. I'm typing to it. I'm looking at the system definition of SYSTEM 501. On a live running Genera 9 on a VLM. If I would look at my MacIvory running Genera 8 it also would not look much too different. Stuff like EH has been long superseded. The Scheduler has been redesigned & rewritten. TV has mostly been superseded by Dynamic Windows. The Garbage Collector has been extended, by new GC variants. > Open Genera did very little on top of Genera at that, mostly targeting and making it work on the Ivory. Open Genera does not work on the Ivory processor. It's a Virtual Lisp Machine. > 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. The Scheduler works different (the old scheduler polled, the new own is event driven), the window system is now Dynamic Windows, Flavors has been updated to New Flavors & the new CLOS (the Common Lisp Object System), ...
  - r40694 2y ago
    you know you don't need tell everyone how you have palter's vlm to look at rel-8-5's sysdcl which has been leaked and hosted on public sites since forever. for example https://archives.loomcom.com/genera/symbolics/sys.sct/sys/sysdcl.lisp.~1059~ https://archives.loomcom.com/genera/symbolics/sys.sct/sys/sy... rel9's sysdcl is not substantially different anyway, the list of module components is the same. ams's hyperbolic perhaps point is that genera is significantly SYSTEM, that symbolics contribution is a kind of obvious extension of the grand vision that was already there in its totality and potential in the MIT's work. I think it's a valid argument, which I don't think can be resolved just by listing names of subsystems. for example you can't just say "oh they replaced tv and window with dynamic windows", because dw uses both tv and legacy, for lack of better term, window. if you look at the flavor definition of basic dynamic-window it uses tv:stream-mixin tv:graphics-mixin and tv:minimum-window. and tv minimum-window is a venerable SYSTEM flavor. not to mention that other systems (like zwei) still use tv window directly. how thick a layer dynamic-window is on top of tv? answering that question require systems level knowledge and investigation. other symbolics extensions are of similar nature.
amszmidt 2y ago
> 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. ZWEI, TV and SI makes up the majority of the base system which is far more than "20%" percent, which is ignoring EH, WINDOW, and anything else that is essentially processor agnostic. The target processor is not that important from the users point of view, to the point that Lambda and CADR shared the exact same source code, and microcode. The Explorer I was essentially a Lambda. Much was "feature" protected with #+/#- to the point where many of the systems worked on Genera as well. So that seems at par with the CPU architectures that Symbolics made, which is "just" a change to the compiler .. and not the overall system .. which is what was being discussed. But yes, Symbolics did design hardware done by Symbolics and made sure it worked on their system .. not sure what your point is other than giving an incorrect view of history and what Symbolics actually did to the Lisp Machine system parts (Symbolics work was much more interesting when it came to other systems like the 3D stuff and what not).
- lispm 2y ago
  ZWEI is no longer in the base system. EH does not exist, a Window system does not exist. Dynamic Windows is in the base system. > The target processor is not that important from the users point of view It's important for the operating system and the processor was used for very different machine hardware: standalone workstations, headless systems, embedded in a Mac, embedded in a SUN, embedded in a network switch, ... > Lambda and CADR shared the exact same source code, and microcode. But not the 3600, which was a 36 bit architecture and not the Ivory, which was a 40 bit microprocessor. A lot of the core routines were different on a 3600 and an Ivory machine. The VLM was even different, running on a 64bit microprocessor, implementing the emulator in C and assembler. There is low-level functionality which has two or three different implementations. The Ivory machines could be very different from a LAMBDA and a CADR, for example as an embedded CPU in a very different host machine (Mac & SUN). That had a lot of consequences for the operating system.
  - amszmidt 2y ago
    > ZWEI is no longer in the base system. EH does not exist, a Window system does not exist. Dynamic Windows is in the base system. Nobody will use Genera without Zmacs or the error handler (aka Debugger)… System 200 ran in the CADR and 3600. Using the same code base, with different microcode. With just bunch of #+ and #-. And no, the target is not that important that it makes up “80% of the system”. Your going into tangents and constantly raising neg things not being discussed, we aren’t talking about the host architecture but about the Lisp Machine system which is mostly agnostic of the target CPU. And between those two, Genera and the MIT system, are essentially the same when it comes to the base layer. To the point you can take the Dynamic listener or even DW and have it running on a MIT system without much work. Genera 9 (which started development just a few years ago going of a system that hadn’t been touched for 30 years and under dubious legal situation) is essentially Genera 8.5 with several fixes. Genera was carefully designed to keep compatibility with the MIT system. And that is one of the reasons why feature and code are so similar.

by lispm 2y ago

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.

lispm 2y ago
I have literally started a VLM (Portable Genera 2.0.6) with a Genera 9.0.6 world. In the "herald" the software says that it is running Genera 9.0.6. You can claim "You are purposefully conflating Portable Genera, Open Genera and Genera.", but I'm actually looking at it now and you don't. Please don't tell me this BS, when I'm right now reading the screen in front of me. > You mention a bunch of things that are also _not_ part of Genera Of course they are. I have the thing right in front of me, running. I'm typing to it. I'm looking at the system definition of SYSTEM 501. On a live running Genera 9 on a VLM. If I would look at my MacIvory running Genera 8 it also would not look much too different. Stuff like EH has been long superseded. The Scheduler has been redesigned & rewritten. TV has mostly been superseded by Dynamic Windows. The Garbage Collector has been extended, by new GC variants. > Open Genera did very little on top of Genera at that, mostly targeting and making it work on the Ivory. Open Genera does not work on the Ivory processor. It's a Virtual Lisp Machine. > 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. The Scheduler works different (the old scheduler polled, the new own is event driven), the window system is now Dynamic Windows, Flavors has been updated to New Flavors & the new CLOS (the Common Lisp Object System), ...
- r40694 2y ago
  you know you don't need tell everyone how you have palter's vlm to look at rel-8-5's sysdcl which has been leaked and hosted on public sites since forever. for example https://archives.loomcom.com/genera/symbolics/sys.sct/sys/sysdcl.lisp.~1059~ https://archives.loomcom.com/genera/symbolics/sys.sct/sys/sy... rel9's sysdcl is not substantially different anyway, the list of module components is the same. ams's hyperbolic perhaps point is that genera is significantly SYSTEM, that symbolics contribution is a kind of obvious extension of the grand vision that was already there in its totality and potential in the MIT's work. I think it's a valid argument, which I don't think can be resolved just by listing names of subsystems. for example you can't just say "oh they replaced tv and window with dynamic windows", because dw uses both tv and legacy, for lack of better term, window. if you look at the flavor definition of basic dynamic-window it uses tv:stream-mixin tv:graphics-mixin and tv:minimum-window. and tv minimum-window is a venerable SYSTEM flavor. not to mention that other systems (like zwei) still use tv window directly. how thick a layer dynamic-window is on top of tv? answering that question require systems level knowledge and investigation. other symbolics extensions are of similar nature.

amszmidt 2y ago

> 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. ZWEI, TV and SI makes up the majority of the base system which is far more than "20%" percent, which is ignoring EH, WINDOW, and anything else that is essentially processor agnostic. The target processor is not that important from the users point of view, to the point that Lambda and CADR shared the exact same source code, and microcode. The Explorer I was essentially a Lambda. Much was "feature" protected with #+/#- to the point where many of the systems worked on Genera as well. So that seems at par with the CPU architectures that Symbolics made, which is "just" a change to the compiler .. and not the overall system .. which is what was being discussed. But yes, Symbolics did design hardware done by Symbolics and made sure it worked on their system .. not sure what your point is other than giving an incorrect view of history and what Symbolics actually did to the Lisp Machine system parts (Symbolics work was much more interesting when it came to other systems like the 3D stuff and what not).

lispm 2y ago
ZWEI is no longer in the base system. EH does not exist, a Window system does not exist. Dynamic Windows is in the base system. > The target processor is not that important from the users point of view It's important for the operating system and the processor was used for very different machine hardware: standalone workstations, headless systems, embedded in a Mac, embedded in a SUN, embedded in a network switch, ... > Lambda and CADR shared the exact same source code, and microcode. But not the 3600, which was a 36 bit architecture and not the Ivory, which was a 40 bit microprocessor. A lot of the core routines were different on a 3600 and an Ivory machine. The VLM was even different, running on a 64bit microprocessor, implementing the emulator in C and assembler. There is low-level functionality which has two or three different implementations. The Ivory machines could be very different from a LAMBDA and a CADR, for example as an embedded CPU in a very different host machine (Mac & SUN). That had a lot of consequences for the operating system.
- amszmidt 2y ago
  > ZWEI is no longer in the base system. EH does not exist, a Window system does not exist. Dynamic Windows is in the base system. Nobody will use Genera without Zmacs or the error handler (aka Debugger)… System 200 ran in the CADR and 3600. Using the same code base, with different microcode. With just bunch of #+ and #-. And no, the target is not that important that it makes up “80% of the system”. Your going into tangents and constantly raising neg things not being discussed, we aren’t talking about the host architecture but about the Lisp Machine system which is mostly agnostic of the target CPU. And between those two, Genera and the MIT system, are essentially the same when it comes to the base layer. To the point you can take the Dynamic listener or even DW and have it running on a MIT system without much work. Genera 9 (which started development just a few years ago going of a system that hadn’t been touched for 30 years and under dubious legal situation) is essentially Genera 8.5 with several fixes. Genera was carefully designed to keep compatibility with the MIT system. And that is one of the reasons why feature and code are so similar.