#lispmachines
Well, first I thought, "would you instead maybe want a thing where all programs said 'I am going to store a file on your disk, ok?" Then I remembered Lisp Machines (very sophisticated computers of the 1980s whose evolutionary line was truncated for reasons arguably unrelated to their coolness) used to dedicate a line at the bottom of the screen to all kinds of status info, like whether you were running or waiting blocked on network or disk. Everything that blocked was allowed a string to say why it was blocked that users might see either in the status line or in the system's process monitor tool.. Part of that status line was a dedicated progress indicator, because could not just iterate over a range or list but do the same operation noting a string describing what you were traversing and giving an indication of the progress without messy pop-ups.
I started this ramble because this capability included file I/O. The line would show the name of a file that was open and a percentage read. So users often were able to detect unexpected files opening by wat hing hat part of screen while bored waiting. They reported suspicious stuff or just files taking too long to process. There waz not yet a web, and cookies had another meaning, but if we had those things, I suppose if cookie-ing showed up in the progress area, it'd be too fleeting. Still, another part of my goal here is to onserve that it's a design choice how transparent we make our operating systems (and a browser is almost a kind of fractally recurring OS), or how inspectable, or how explainable. We have, of course, Javascript debugging console, but that's a nerdy tool not helpful to mortals just using the system, not programming it.
A UI to tell you what kinds of cookie data was passing by (or how much, or to whom) might be designed that was human-friendly. It could use presentations and metaphors people chosen for regular folks to comprehend.
(Note you COULD use ChatGPT kinds of interfaces that papered over the technicalities but let us introspect into system operation, BUT then you'd need an AI nosIng in all your business just so it could tell you if someone else was ALSO nosing in your business. Sounds hopelessly circular and inefficient ... but probably where the world is headed.)
David A. Moon was one of the founders of Symbolics and one of the chief architects of its Lisp machines. In 1991, after he left Symbolics and joined Apple, he wrote this retrospective of Genera, "the world's first commercial object-oriented operating system": https://archive.org/details/genera-retrospective-1991
The Register published this fascinating article. It's a reread of the history of computing with a focus on Lisp, Lisp Machines, and early workstations:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/25/the_war_of_the_workstations
#symbolics #lispmachines #genera #lisp
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325709617062?hash=item4bd5ce57a6:g:pWUAAOSwNIJkmhFE&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4OPv%2BaG23GBv6TS3E8I%2FruyybIuR2CI%2FRiJ%2FjXWOoOkFeqwIZh2h2JZXxyuvmzdSNEJDMDEHAj0Vfqz47PvFreKLpLWGvkxYZe5Sw9NsO%2BKiOysDQo1D8iAMk%2B9lEYRdsTY0ItcQYh7jJcP8C54xOaCGfrfy3A8wPbyWPV%2FZwl8J0lQeLMRsBIvLhNlC29oVM0%2BDgg70%2FKAqTWvbzurLgxd%2FCoEAxhdHKiEi8a%2FDpDRInjxdr8j%2BWPRlbyRoyKWPdwKaKIehYUzn5xZLUm2%2BpM2Phn%2Buffit465sMPbt4b1p%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4acuq73Yg
Isn’t someone out there working on a modern version of #lispMachines?
Doug Lenat died. RIP. #cyc #lispm #lispmachines #ai #commonlisp #cycorp
He started the Cyc project, using Lisp Machines as a development environment. The project is roughly since 40 years ongoing. Cyc was the dream of a large-scale knowledge base of common sense knowledge. One that has many ways of reasoning and making inferences. It used SubL a variant of Common Lisp.
Here is an old screen shot...
Question posted to Hacker News:
Ask HN: What Were the Differences Between Symbolics Genera and Xerox Interlisp-D
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36713595
LispM.de is the library of Alexandria of Lisp.
It's an incredible historical archive on Lisp systems and dialects with a focus on Symbolics Lisp Machines. It hosts countless manuals, research papers and publications, screenshots, videos, source code, documentation, articles, data, links, and other rare material.
Medley Interlisp has the most tightly integrated combination of system software, application platform, programming language, development environment, tools, and runtime platform I've ever experienced.
A rare "whole greater than the sum of its parts" level of synergy mostly seen only on Smalltalk workstations and Lisp Machines.
@amoroso I would be interested in hearing and reading about if you had a conversation with noted finely aged hardware guru @jasmaz about 80s (or earlier..) #interlisp -machines. Sadly I don't know anything about Xerox AI Workstations (yet). #vintage #LispMachines
I know there are countless gems buried in the depths of @internetarchive but I was stunned when I run across this rare book about Symbolics Lisp Machines, "Lisp Lore: A Guide to Programming the Lisp Machine" by Hank Bromley:
Chaosnet: The #Lisp Machine network protocol that was beat by TCP/IP
"The only really visible remnant of #Chaosnet is the CH DNS class. There’s something about that fact that I find strangely fascinating. The CH class is a vestigial ghost of an alternative network protocol in a world that has long since settled on TCP/IP. It’s exciting, at least to me, to know that the last traces of Chaosnet still lurk out there in the infrastructure of our networked society. The CH DNS class is a fun artifact of digital archaeology. But it’s also a living reminder that the internet was not born fully formed, that TCP/IP is not the only way to connect computers to each other, and that “the internet” is far from the coolest name we could have had for our global communication system."
My Medley Interlisp post was shared on Hacker News, got over a hundred upvotes, and ended up on the front page, where it still remained almost a day later after climbing up to number 5. So far my post received over 27K views, and counting.
I'm really happy Medley Interlisp is gaining some very well deserved attention.
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/my-encounter-with-medley-interlisp
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34300806
← (MIND 'BLOWN)
If you're into retrocomputing stop what you're doing and check out Medley Interlisp, a restoration of the software environment of Xerox Lisp Machines rehosted on modern systems.
It's the most fascinating and advanced software development environment I've ever seen. I posted about my first impressions, why I love Medley Interlisp, and how I plan to use it:
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/my-encounter-with-medley-interlisp
Are there aney emulators of #lisp machines terminals ?
Or Lisp machines in general ?