4 ms·

LambdaPi – a Lisp OS for Raspberry Pi

70 points by bsima 12y ago

schrodingersCat 12y ago
I think you meant to say "Lisp OS" in the headline. Nice post otherwise. Thanks!
endlessvoid94 12y ago
Can't wait to try it
analog31 12y ago
I got into computers and programming during the era when several of the more popular microcomputers booted up directly to the BASIC prompt. Perhaps out of nostalgia, I've always had an interest in little computers that blur the distinction between programming language and operating system. So, I'll keep an eye on this project, and maybe it'll spur me to give Lisp one more chance.
- rrmm 12y ago
  I'm interested in this too. What I've been wanting is a single chip solution. I've designed various systems based on arm7 chips, but my naive lisp implementations barely fit any usable system into the onboard RAM (~90k). I've been waiting for atmel or someone to put something like 1MB or so on chip, but the market for such devices isn't there. FORTH seems better able to fit and has a little better fundamental underpinnings than BASIC.
  - phyllostachys 12y ago
    The STM32F429 Discovery board [1] has 2MB of Flash and 256KB of internal RAM. It also looks like it has 64 Mb of SDRAM which might be what your looking for. We have an engineer where I work who is trying to get mRuby up and running on one. It has tons of memory for a Cortex-M part/board [1] - http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/PF259090 http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/PF259...
    - rrmm 12y ago
      That's definitely more like it. 256k is a reasonable chunk. Although at $20 and 144LQFP, it's a pricey and kind of chunky part. It exists though which is nice. How does mRuby do GC; does it ref count? I don't think lisps could really afford to be ref counted, unless you pool the cons cells into groups that are ref counted. My implementation was a dual semispace collector which didn't help matters wrt space.
  - analog31 12y ago
    Amusingly, I've built industrial controllers using the 8052AH-BASIC chip, but it was pretty bare bones.
    - rrmm 12y ago
      I've used those too. Having to wire up the 'LS373 latch was always annoying though.
yzzxy 12y ago
So is this a derivation of scheme, or an actual implementation of a given scheme spec? Would be very useful as an on-the-go tool for those of us on SICP treks if it's an actual implementation of MIT scheme.
pjmlp 12y ago
This is great idea! We need more people experimenting with alternative OS ideas, some of them sadly lost, and less UNIX clones.
girvo 12y ago
I've kept an eye on this for over a year now. Has there been more updates lately because as far as I've seen the main author has moved on :(
bartbes 12y ago
Last commit was June 13th, 2012, so it appears to be dead.
- datashaman 12y ago
  Perhaps it is feature-complete. :P
r0nin 12y ago
very interesting. i wonder if they have access to the gpios already. would love to try to connect it to my logipi fpga board and shell out complex computations to that.
niklasni1 12y ago
Here's a Scheme for a number of ARM micros, including the much more resource-constrained Cortex-M variants: http://armpit.sourceforge.net/ http://armpit.sourceforge.net/
- sigzero 12y ago
  Sure...but that isn't an OS.
  - niklasni1 12y ago
    It'll give you a REPL on the bare metal... it's a /very/ minimal OS.
ddp 12y ago
It appears to be based on Chibi scheme which is Alex Shinn's embeddable scheme that was chosen as the reference for R7RS small. https://code.google.com/p/chibi-scheme/ https://code.google.com/p/chibi-scheme/

70 points by bsima 12y ago

schrodingersCat 12y ago

I think you meant to say "Lisp OS" in the headline. Nice post otherwise. Thanks!

endlessvoid94 12y ago

Can't wait to try it

analog31 12y ago

I got into computers and programming during the era when several of the more popular microcomputers booted up directly to the BASIC prompt. Perhaps out of nostalgia, I've always had an interest in little computers that blur the distinction between programming language and operating system. So, I'll keep an eye on this project, and maybe it'll spur me to give Lisp one more chance.

rrmm 12y ago
I'm interested in this too. What I've been wanting is a single chip solution. I've designed various systems based on arm7 chips, but my naive lisp implementations barely fit any usable system into the onboard RAM (~90k). I've been waiting for atmel or someone to put something like 1MB or so on chip, but the market for such devices isn't there. FORTH seems better able to fit and has a little better fundamental underpinnings than BASIC.
- phyllostachys 12y ago
  The STM32F429 Discovery board [1] has 2MB of Flash and 256KB of internal RAM. It also looks like it has 64 Mb of SDRAM which might be what your looking for. We have an engineer where I work who is trying to get mRuby up and running on one. It has tons of memory for a Cortex-M part/board [1] - http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/PF259090 http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/PF259...
  - rrmm 12y ago
    That's definitely more like it. 256k is a reasonable chunk. Although at $20 and 144LQFP, it's a pricey and kind of chunky part. It exists though which is nice. How does mRuby do GC; does it ref count? I don't think lisps could really afford to be ref counted, unless you pool the cons cells into groups that are ref counted. My implementation was a dual semispace collector which didn't help matters wrt space.
- analog31 12y ago
  Amusingly, I've built industrial controllers using the 8052AH-BASIC chip, but it was pretty bare bones.
  - rrmm 12y ago
    I've used those too. Having to wire up the 'LS373 latch was always annoying though.

yzzxy 12y ago

So is this a derivation of scheme, or an actual implementation of a given scheme spec? Would be very useful as an on-the-go tool for those of us on SICP treks if it's an actual implementation of MIT scheme.

pjmlp 12y ago

This is great idea! We need more people experimenting with alternative OS ideas, some of them sadly lost, and less UNIX clones.

girvo 12y ago

I've kept an eye on this for over a year now. Has there been more updates lately because as far as I've seen the main author has moved on :(

bartbes 12y ago

Last commit was June 13th, 2012, so it appears to be dead.

datashaman 12y ago
Perhaps it is feature-complete. :P

r0nin 12y ago

very interesting. i wonder if they have access to the gpios already. would love to try to connect it to my logipi fpga board and shell out complex computations to that.

niklasni1 12y ago

Here's a Scheme for a number of ARM micros, including the much more resource-constrained Cortex-M variants: http://armpit.sourceforge.net/ http://armpit.sourceforge.net/

sigzero 12y ago
Sure...but that isn't an OS.
- niklasni1 12y ago
  It'll give you a REPL on the bare metal... it's a /very/ minimal OS.

ddp 12y ago

It appears to be based on Chibi scheme which is Alex Shinn's embeddable scheme that was chosen as the reference for R7RS small. https://code.google.com/p/chibi-scheme/ https://code.google.com/p/chibi-scheme/