5 ms·

None of those were in any way 'similar' to Lisp Machines from Xerox, TI, LMI or Symbolics. Those were high-end workstations with a Lisp OS, coming in a lot of d

by lispm 12y ago

None of those were in any way 'similar' to Lisp Machines from Xerox, TI, LMI or Symbolics. Those were high-end workstations with a Lisp OS, coming in a lot of different form factors. They were developed from 1981 to 1992. The main similarities were that they all used electricity. Some of the computers with Java-processor were similar in that they provided an object-oriented garbage-collected language and OS.

frik 12y ago
> None of those were in any way 'similar' to Lisp Machines It seems you misinterpreted my sentences. Read the linked Wikipedia. Basically not ASM/Assembler code (0, 1 form) is executed on the CPU but a specific higher level language like Lisp/Ada/Pascal/Java/etc. directly.
- lispm 12y ago
  Lisp Machines did not run Lisp 'directly'. Lisp code was either running interpreted or usually compiled to machine code. This is an example from a Symbolics Lisp Machine with an Ivory CPU. (defun example-count (predicate list) (let ((count 0)) (dolist (i list count) (when (funcall predicate i) (incf count))))) The disassembled machine code for above function (for the Ivory microprocessor from Symbolics): Command: (disassemble (compile #'example-count)) 0 ENTRY: 2 REQUIRED, 0 OPTIONAL ;Creating PREDICATE and LIST 2 PUSH 0 ;Creating COUNT 3 PUSH FP|3 ;LIST 4 PUSH NIL ;Creating I 5 BRANCH 15 6 SET-TO-CDR-PUSH-CAR FP|5 7 SET-SP-TO-ADDRESS-SAVE-TOS SP|-1 10 START-CALL FP|2 ;PREDICATE 11 PUSH FP|6 ;I 12 FINISH-CALL-1-VALUE 13 BRANCH-FALSE 15 14 INCREMENT FP|4 ;COUNT 15 ENDP FP|5 16 BRANCH-FALSE 6 17 SET-SP-TO-ADDRESS SP|-2 20 RETURN-SINGLE-STACK This machine also had C, Pascal, Fortran, Ada and Prolog compilers.
  - crististm 12y ago
    I was reading these days the Symbolics C manual to find some details about the compiler's output. I know that the hw had assembly instructions that mapped almost one-to-one to Lisp primitives. However, what was the output of the C compiler and how did they integrate it with the Lisp code? For that matter, what was the output of the Pascal or ADA compilers? In one of K. Reti's videos there's a blend of stack traces of Lisp and C code. What makes that possible?
    - lispm 12y ago
      > I know that the hw had assembly instructions that mapped almost one-to-one to Lisp primitives. In my example you see the assembly. You can see how much 'one-to-one' it was... The C compiler compiled to Lisp and then to machine code. Same for Pascal. For Ada, I don't know.
      - DonHopkins 12y ago
        I once visited a Washington DC Beltway Bandit government contractor's office who had a Symbolics Lisp Machine that they used exclusively to develop Fortran code, which they compiled into Lisp and debugged with the awesome programming tools. And of course there was Gyro's Zeta-C compiler, with an interactive C listener.
        mietek 12y ago
        Artefacts of a future past…
  - psandersen 12y ago
    You sound knowledgable so thought I'd ask here :) ... Would there be any logic/benefit in a modern lisp machine? e.g. if intel decided they'd put the same engineering effort into a 'lisp machine' as they did Haswell, would there be any inherent advantages or things that could be done differently?
    - 12y ago

by lispm 12y ago

frik 12y ago

> None of those were in any way 'similar' to Lisp Machines It seems you misinterpreted my sentences. Read the linked Wikipedia. Basically not ASM/Assembler code (0, 1 form) is executed on the CPU but a specific higher level language like Lisp/Ada/Pascal/Java/etc. directly.

lispm 12y ago
Lisp Machines did not run Lisp 'directly'. Lisp code was either running interpreted or usually compiled to machine code. This is an example from a Symbolics Lisp Machine with an Ivory CPU. (defun example-count (predicate list) (let ((count 0)) (dolist (i list count) (when (funcall predicate i) (incf count))))) The disassembled machine code for above function (for the Ivory microprocessor from Symbolics): Command: (disassemble (compile #'example-count)) 0 ENTRY: 2 REQUIRED, 0 OPTIONAL ;Creating PREDICATE and LIST 2 PUSH 0 ;Creating COUNT 3 PUSH FP|3 ;LIST 4 PUSH NIL ;Creating I 5 BRANCH 15 6 SET-TO-CDR-PUSH-CAR FP|5 7 SET-SP-TO-ADDRESS-SAVE-TOS SP|-1 10 START-CALL FP|2 ;PREDICATE 11 PUSH FP|6 ;I 12 FINISH-CALL-1-VALUE 13 BRANCH-FALSE 15 14 INCREMENT FP|4 ;COUNT 15 ENDP FP|5 16 BRANCH-FALSE 6 17 SET-SP-TO-ADDRESS SP|-2 20 RETURN-SINGLE-STACK This machine also had C, Pascal, Fortran, Ada and Prolog compilers.
- crististm 12y ago
  I was reading these days the Symbolics C manual to find some details about the compiler's output. I know that the hw had assembly instructions that mapped almost one-to-one to Lisp primitives. However, what was the output of the C compiler and how did they integrate it with the Lisp code? For that matter, what was the output of the Pascal or ADA compilers? In one of K. Reti's videos there's a blend of stack traces of Lisp and C code. What makes that possible?
  - lispm 12y ago
    > I know that the hw had assembly instructions that mapped almost one-to-one to Lisp primitives. In my example you see the assembly. You can see how much 'one-to-one' it was... The C compiler compiled to Lisp and then to machine code. Same for Pascal. For Ada, I don't know.
    - DonHopkins 12y ago
      I once visited a Washington DC Beltway Bandit government contractor's office who had a Symbolics Lisp Machine that they used exclusively to develop Fortran code, which they compiled into Lisp and debugged with the awesome programming tools. And of course there was Gyro's Zeta-C compiler, with an interactive C listener.
      - mietek 12y ago
        Artefacts of a future past…
- psandersen 12y ago
  You sound knowledgable so thought I'd ask here :) ... Would there be any logic/benefit in a modern lisp machine? e.g. if intel decided they'd put the same engineering effort into a 'lisp machine' as they did Haswell, would there be any inherent advantages or things that could be done differently?
  - 12y ago