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Site's down, here's a pastebin of the text: http://pastebin.com/6kkCTgjg http://pastebin.com/6kkCTgjg Neither archive.org nor Google Cache have this. Weird. V

Site's down, here's a pastebin of the text: http://pastebin.com/6kkCTgjg http://pastebin.com/6kkCTgjg Neither archive.org nor Google Cache have this. Weird. Video from article: http://vimeo.com/83886950 http://vimeo.com/83886950 Image 1: http://i.imgur.com/r62FSfE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/r62FSfE.jpg Image 2: http://i.imgur.com/xsxutc3.png http://i.imgur.com/xsxutc3.png Image 3: http://i.imgur.com/zL9DFbr.png http://i.imgur.com/zL9DFbr.png

zokier 12y ago
> Video from article: http://vimeo.com/83886950 http://vimeo.com/83886950 The things that stood out to me were that a) boy, it was a slow system. Sure vi etc are more spartan, but even back then I'd imagine the were significantly faster than this Lisp machine. b) mouse was clearly the hot new thing, it is used lot more than what I think would be optimal.
- lispm 12y ago
  That was a 5 MIPS machine with just 40 megabyte RAM. The UI ran over a 10 Mbit/sec Ethernet X11 connection on a remote machine.
  - zokier 12y ago
    I suppose I meant that they probably were bit ahead of their time and overly ambitious. Performance and especially latency are critically important for interactive applications. The designers must have been fully aware of the performance characteristics and hardware limitations at the time, but still they decided to ship such system. Maybe they should have taken a look in the mirror and notice that the hardware is not ready for what they were making and downscaled it to fit, then incrementally grow those features back when they become more practical.
    - lispm 12y ago
      The goal was not to have a fast vi, for writing applications in a slow way. If you wanted vi, there were other systems. It was a system for research of development of advanced software, often with complex GUIs. Symbolics sold for several years into the CAD and 3d-graphics markets.
edwintorok 12y ago
Another video showing Symbolics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk
- bokchoi 12y ago
  That was a great intro video. Pretty amazing stuff.

zokier 12y ago

> Video from article: http://vimeo.com/83886950 http://vimeo.com/83886950 The things that stood out to me were that a) boy, it was a slow system. Sure vi etc are more spartan, but even back then I'd imagine the were significantly faster than this Lisp machine. b) mouse was clearly the hot new thing, it is used lot more than what I think would be optimal.

lispm 12y ago
That was a 5 MIPS machine with just 40 megabyte RAM. The UI ran over a 10 Mbit/sec Ethernet X11 connection on a remote machine.
- zokier 12y ago
  I suppose I meant that they probably were bit ahead of their time and overly ambitious. Performance and especially latency are critically important for interactive applications. The designers must have been fully aware of the performance characteristics and hardware limitations at the time, but still they decided to ship such system. Maybe they should have taken a look in the mirror and notice that the hardware is not ready for what they were making and downscaled it to fit, then incrementally grow those features back when they become more practical.
  - lispm 12y ago
    The goal was not to have a fast vi, for writing applications in a slow way. If you wanted vi, there were other systems. It was a system for research of development of advanced software, often with complex GUIs. Symbolics sold for several years into the CAD and 3d-graphics markets.

edwintorok 12y ago

Another video showing Symbolics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk

bokchoi 12y ago
That was a great intro video. Pretty amazing stuff.