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This is wild: > Portable Genera, an official port of the VLM to Intel and ARM done under contract for existing customers. While this version isn't publicly ava
by pdw 2y ago
This is wild:
> Portable Genera, an official port of the VLM to Intel and ARM done under contract for existing customers. While this version isn't publicly available as of this writing, it's still actively developed.
- nxobject 2y agoSo many mysteries: which customers, and which customers with the capacity to pay not only for an ongoing service contract but a port? Some unknown wealthy benefactor? Someone managing 30 year-old ICBMs?
- bombcar 2y agoObviously we now know what OpenAI is really running on.
- shrubble 2y agoThere were some financial giants that used Symbolics for fraud detection; possibly it just makes sense to keep it running than to rewrite it. I remember American Express being a large customer, from what I read.
- pinewurst 2y agoI knew some hedge funds running systems on them, but can’t imagine those haven’t been ported/rewritten to something not antidiluvian.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- psd1 2y agoI think we need the word "postdiluvian". You wanted "ante", not "anti", btw
- p_l 2y agoFrom what I recall of various discussions over time: Around 2001, AMEX fraud detection system was still developed on Genera, then OpenGenera running on Alpha workstations, but for deployment it was compiled using Franz's Allegro Common Lisp to run on "normal" servers. About 2014-2015? I remember seeing more than 100k USD in publicly visible support contracts for US federal agencies related to Symbolics systems, which might have been related to the part stock and repairs done by symbolics remnant mentioned in the article - I know for certain that repair work continued to happen until at least 2018 (I talked with one of the people doing the repairs on contract).
- rbanffy 2y agoI’d love to know how many Lisp machines are still in the wild and will eventually be available after decommissioning.
- lproven 2y agoMe too. There does seem to be a small residual market, enough to support a little pro work. "Who" and "where" might be confidential, but "how big" and "why" or "what" could be fascinating.
- rbanffy 2y ago> but "how big" and "why" or "what" could be fascinating. I would love to know more about those.
- amszmidt 2y agoThe jury is still out of how much official this is, seeing that the legal situation for Genera is a quagmire. Wilder is that the MIT Lisp Machine branch is also being actively developed, and it has a clear legal situation today. To the point that there are several (simulated) CADR's on the Chaosnet talking to each other over the Internet. :-)
- pdw 2y agoIs https://tumbleweed.nu/lm-3/ https://tumbleweed.nu/lm-3/ the project you're referring to?
- amszmidt 2y agoYup! Feel free to prod me if you need help (forum, chat, mail ...).
- rbanffy 2y agoSomeone needs to sell a Space Cadet USB keyboard (but with arrows).
- amszmidt 2y ago(I am slowly working on making a replica ... without arrows though)
- rbanffy 2y agoIs there any good literature on building keyboards? I’d love to try my hand at building vintage-like keyboards for things like DEC terminals, workstations (Xerox Star and Apollo Domain rely so much on their keyboards it’s hard to experience them on regular PC keyboards).
- floren 2y agoI've just completed a keyboard inspired by the Lisp machine keyboards but aimed toward use on a modern Unix system. Making your own one-off hand-wired keyboard is time consuming but pretty easy if you can solder. I probably spent $400 all told, including a fully custom keycap set from https://fkcaps.com/custom/ https://fkcaps.com/custom/ I've been meaning to write a blog post about it but I'm still finishing shakedown (currently chasing a wiring problem that messes up multi-key chords on the homerow)