Discussion:
any chance of a lisp operating system for desktop computer?
(too old to reply)
Azathoth Hastur
2020-05-04 18:41:43 UTC
Permalink
any?
Jeff Barnett
2020-05-04 22:44:32 UTC
Permalink
any?
It's been done in the past by several companies. It's history but
fascinating. Many people who read and post here were part of that
history and most of the rest of us mourn the passing of that technology.
Why do you ask?????
--
Jeff Barnett
Madhu
2020-05-05 01:32:14 UTC
Permalink
I spotted the first "why lisp is dead" cll thread last month from
"9 Apr 90 11:39:44 GMT". This was a bonafide lisp hacker who was
attributed the death to the high runtime license fees because of which
he could not use lisp for his expert system startup.

Lately I've been trying to fit the history of the lisp machine (as I've
read it) into a theological framework of good and evil and - to see the
results as the punishment of God on the stakeholders on whom the task
was given - the failure of the apparently "good" and the perverse
destiny that favours the "worse". Were the business models that
succeeeded less evil than the business model of those who were given
charge of the lisp machine? No. Were the competitors less evil or more
righteous than those lisp brahmins? No. Was it just a case of satan
favouring the non-lisp world because they were his children? No. His
children are uniformly distributed. Is it just a quirk of the endtimes?
Was lisp being spared the unforgivable charge of being the instrument of
the kingdom of the antichrist in bringing the world into digital
submission?

I'm afraid I haven't reached a satisfactory conclusion, Yet the
judgments have to been faced. Like Job. Nevertheless I believe after the
coming judgment on this world is over the programmers in the world to
come will be programming in lisp
Paul Rubin
2020-05-05 08:39:34 UTC
Permalink
Were the business models that succeeeded less evil than the business
model of those who were given charge of the lisp machine? No. Were
the competitors less evil or more righteous than those lisp brahmins? ...
The competitors might have been more evil or less evil, but either way
they ran on much cheaper hardware at a time when computers were
expensive. The Lisp machine was only accessible to a small and affluent
user base. Later, cheap computers became powerful enough to run Lisp
productively, but new languages proliferated and in the latently typed
segment, worse is better prevailed. Meanwhile among language geeks in
the lambdasphere, ML and its descendants such as Haskell presented
interesting new challenges that drew even more attention away from Lisp.
paul wallich
2020-05-05 13:03:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by Paul Rubin
Were the business models that succeeeded less evil than the business
model of those who were given charge of the lisp machine? No. Were
the competitors less evil or more righteous than those lisp brahmins? ...
The competitors might have been more evil or less evil, but either way
they ran on much cheaper hardware at a time when computers were
expensive. The Lisp machine was only accessible to a small and affluent
user base. Later, cheap computers became powerful enough to run Lisp
productively, but new languages proliferated and in the latently typed
segment, worse is better prevailed. Meanwhile among language geeks in
the lambdasphere, ML and its descendants such as Haskell presented
interesting new challenges that drew even more attention away from Lisp.
IIRC, it wasn't just the static price comparisons, it was the trend that
clobbered lisp machines. Conventional computers were doubling in
CPU/memory/disk every 12-24 months like clockwork. The specialized
computer makers didn't have teams that could do both hardware and
software at a rate anywhere near the commodity ones. So even if you were
4x faster for AI this year, that would be parity or worse 5 years down
the road.

Now, of course, you could execute a lisp operating system either
directly or in emulation much faster than a lisp machine ran. But once
again it would take more people than the community has to spare...

paul
Paul Rubin
2020-05-14 23:28:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by paul wallich
Now, of course, you could execute a lisp operating system either
directly or in emulation much faster than a lisp machine ran. But once
again it would take more people than the community has to spare...
I think some people are doing this using old CADR load bands, but I
don't know how well it works. I had a deprived childhood (j/k) and grew
up programming Unix without ever spending significant time with Lisp
machines, so even now I'm not that conversant with what they did.
Azathoth Hastur
2020-05-14 23:54:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by paul wallich
Post by Paul Rubin
Were the business models that succeeeded less evil than the business
model of those who were given charge of the lisp machine? No. Were
the competitors less evil or more righteous than those lisp brahmins? ...
The competitors might have been more evil or less evil, but either way
they ran on much cheaper hardware at a time when computers were
expensive. The Lisp machine was only accessible to a small and affluent
user base. Later, cheap computers became powerful enough to run Lisp
productively, but new languages proliferated and in the latently typed
segment, worse is better prevailed. Meanwhile among language geeks in
the lambdasphere, ML and its descendants such as Haskell presented
interesting new challenges that drew even more attention away from Lisp.
IIRC, it wasn't just the static price comparisons, it was the trend that
clobbered lisp machines. Conventional computers were doubling in
CPU/memory/disk every 12-24 months like clockwork. The specialized
computer makers didn't have teams that could do both hardware and
software at a rate anywhere near the commodity ones. So even if you were
4x faster for AI this year, that would be parity or worse 5 years down
the road.
Now, of course, you could execute a lisp operating system either
directly or in emulation much faster than a lisp machine ran. But once
again it would take more people than the community has to spare...
paul
how could end user apps mostly websites....be done better in lisp?
Azathoth Hastur
2020-05-14 23:53:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Paul Rubin
Were the business models that succeeeded less evil than the business
model of those who were given charge of the lisp machine? No. Were
the competitors less evil or more righteous than those lisp brahmins? ...
The competitors might have been more evil or less evil, but either way
they ran on much cheaper hardware at a time when computers were
expensive. The Lisp machine was only accessible to a small and affluent
user base. Later, cheap computers became powerful enough to run Lisp
productively, but new languages proliferated and in the latently typed
segment, worse is better prevailed. Meanwhile among language geeks in
the lambdasphere, ML and its descendants such as Haskell presented
interesting new challenges that drew even more attention away from Lisp.
if they are better

why did they not take off unless it was political pushing microcrap and oracle
Azathoth Hastur
2020-05-07 04:30:23 UTC
Permalink
Post by Madhu
I spotted the first "why lisp is dead" cll thread last month from
"9 Apr 90 11:39:44 GMT". This was a bonafide lisp hacker who was
attributed the death to the high runtime license fees because of which
he could not use lisp for his expert system startup.
Lately I've been trying to fit the history of the lisp machine (as I've
read it) into a theological framework of good and evil and - to see the
results as the punishment of God on the stakeholders on whom the task
was given - the failure of the apparently "good" and the perverse
destiny that favours the "worse". Were the business models that
succeeeded less evil than the business model of those who were given
charge of the lisp machine? No. Were the competitors less evil or more
righteous than those lisp brahmins? No. Was it just a case of satan
favouring the non-lisp world because they were his children? No. His
children are uniformly distributed. Is it just a quirk of the endtimes?
Was lisp being spared the unforgivable charge of being the instrument of
the kingdom of the antichrist in bringing the world into digital
submission?
I'm afraid I haven't reached a satisfactory conclusion, Yet the
judgments have to been faced. Like Job. Nevertheless I believe after the
coming judgment on this world is over the programmers in the world to
come will be programming in lisp
https://www.vidlii.com/watch?v=4VbDbYTTxlr
Azathoth Hastur
2020-05-14 23:52:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Madhu
I spotted the first "why lisp is dead" cll thread last month from
"9 Apr 90 11:39:44 GMT". This was a bonafide lisp hacker who was
attributed the death to the high runtime license fees because of which
he could not use lisp for his expert system startup.
Lately I've been trying to fit the history of the lisp machine (as I've
read it) into a theological framework of good and evil and - to see the
results as the punishment of God on the stakeholders on whom the task
was given - the failure of the apparently "good" and the perverse
destiny that favours the "worse". Were the business models that
succeeeded less evil than the business model of those who were given
charge of the lisp machine? No. Were the competitors less evil or more
righteous than those lisp brahmins? No. Was it just a case of satan
favouring the non-lisp world because they were his children? No. His
children are uniformly distributed. Is it just a quirk of the endtimes?
Was lisp being spared the unforgivable charge of being the instrument of
the kingdom of the antichrist in bringing the world into digital
submission?
I'm afraid I haven't reached a satisfactory conclusion, Yet the
judgments have to been faced. Like Job. Nevertheless I believe after the
coming judgment on this world is over the programmers in the world to
come will be programming in lisp
Not sure I agree.
Oracle and microsoft are great examples of inferior software winning due to politics
Azathoth Hastur
2020-05-07 04:29:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jeff Barnett
any?
It's been done in the past by several companies. It's history but
fascinating. Many people who read and post here were part of that
history and most of the rest of us mourn the passing of that technology.
Why do you ask?????
--
Jeff Barnett
any chance of a competitor to linux n bsd emerging?

i cant figure out plan9 and rmox is 32bit sofar
Azathoth Hastur
2020-05-14 23:50:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jeff Barnett
any?
It's been done in the past by several companies. It's history but
fascinating. Many people who read and post here were part of that
history and most of the rest of us mourn the passing of that technology.
Why do you ask?????
--
Jeff Barnett
could someone ressurect it?

could it provide a web browser?
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