Replied in thread
Shades of Lisp Machines.
Recent searches
Search options
#lispmachine
0 posts0 participants0 posts today
![A newspaper clipping with a photo of Russel Noftsker that says:
AI superstar plunges to earth
Knowledge-based expert systems delivered on symbolic processing machines are "a trend that I'd say is unstoppable at this point."
Russel Noftsker
Chairman, Symbolics, Inc.
February 1986
"I don't want to see the company fail. I don't want to see any more employees lose their jobs."
Noftsker
February 1988
BY CLINTON WILDER
and STANLEY GIBSON
CW STAFF
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Like Icarus, Symbolics, Inc. thought there was no limit to how high... [the picture cuts off]
Its technology was the envy of that sexy new industry, artificial intelligence, and its rapid climb to the $100 million revenue level in 1986 earned it acclaim as "a stock market superstar."
Now mired in red ink and leaderless -- its founders having been eased out of control -- the firm stands as a classic case of missed opportunities, overreaching ambition and market insensitivity.
"Success can be seductive," said Barbara Isgur, a technology analyst with D. H. Brown Associates in Tarrytown, N.Y.
"It's hard to know when to turn the corner or change direction. I can't think of a company that's been able to do that without a lot of pain," Isgur said.
Symbolics -- which sprang up at the forefront of an indus-[the picture cuts off]](https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/114/235/950/790/971/333/original/a9a70d42bebacc9a.png "A newspaper clipping with a photo of Russel Noftsker that says:
AI superstar plunges to earth
Knowledge-based expert systems delivered on symbolic processing machines are \"a trend that I'd say is unstoppable at this point.\"
Russel Noftsker
Chairman, Symbolics, Inc.
February 1986
\"I don't want to see the company fail. I don't want to see any more employees lose their jobs.\"
Noftsker
February 1988
BY CLINTON WILDER
and STANLEY GIBSON
CW STAFF
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Like Icarus, Symbolics, Inc. thought there was no limit to how high... [the picture cuts off]
Its technology was the envy of that sexy new industry, artificial intelligence, and its rapid climb to the $100 million revenue level in 1986 earned it acclaim as \"a stock market superstar.\"
Now mired in red ink and leaderless -- its founders having been eased out of control -- the firm stands as a classic case of missed opportunities, overreaching ambition and market insensitivity.
\"Success can be seductive,\" said Barbara Isgur, a technology analyst with D. H. Brown Associates in Tarrytown, N.Y.
\"It's hard to know when to turn the corner or change direction. I can't think of a company that's been able to do that without a lot of pain,\" Isgur said.
Symbolics -- which sprang up at the forefront of an indus-[the picture cuts off]")
Android #Emacs 31.0.50 / Termux screencast, running Phel #lisp #PHP web application in localhost for development: https://nc.contabo-storage-1.lti.la/s/JzRSfFo6L6GADkt #unix #lispmachine
"The mix-in revolution: How an ice cream innovator in Somerville influenced Lisp pioneers at the MIT AI Lab—and made a lasting mark on programming."
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111238/the-mix-in-revolution/
MIT Technology Review · The mix-in revolution
Replied in thread
Back in the 1980s, when my then-office-mate was developing the Japanese product for the Symbolics lisp machine, we had an electronic version of this.
It was a big pad, about 50cm x 50cm, with a stylus to pick out individual characters. This was for kanji; the hiragana and katakana were handled separately.
To watch him use it was amazing... and slow.
Replied in thread
@kbob @WillFlux people will offer you a lot of kidneys for such a Space-Cadet Keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard
en.wikipedia.orgSpace-cadet keyboard - Wikipedia
So how cool is this. I have been reading a lot about the #lispmachine, but I never attempted to get an instance running on my GNU/Linux system. Thanks to @amszmidt this is really absolutely trivial: Clone the fossil repo and type "./m -s". And it works, I get a Y2K compliant instance! 
https://tumbleweed.nu/r/l/doc/trunk/README.md
1/2
#lisp #commonlisp #lispworks #symbolics #lispmachine
Made the KR frame system from the UIMS Garnet for two Common Lisp implementations work: LispWorks 8 and Portable Genera. I used this version: https://github.com/ury-marshak/kr
Typical problem porting code:: the initial value for structure slots is undefined in CL. The code assumes NIL.
Attached a screenshot of the KR examples in Portable Genera, a Virtual Lisp Machine on an Apple Mac mini with M4 Pro.
Replied to Yaroslav Khnygin
@surabax 
What I find interesting in this Symbolics Genera retrospective by David Moon is the discussion of the origins and motivations behind the lack of kernel protection in the Lisp Machine environment and, more generally, in Lisp. These features emerged from social dynamics and values like the opennes of hacker culture as much as from engineering design decisions.
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
Internet ArchiveGenera Retrospective : Apple : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveA paper on Symbolics Genera by David A. Moon.Symbolics Genera was the world's first commercial object-oriented operating system. This paper describes a few...
This Italian TV opening for 1990 FIFA World Cup was made on a Symbolics Lisp machine using S-Graphics software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oe0webMVu0
You can watch the interview with the artist in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQKlgza_HgE
Replied to Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso #lisp #lispmachine an interesting feature, btw., of Genera is to write / load patches via Start Patch, Add Patch, Finish Patch commands in Zmacs. One collects all the source code to patch a functionality and it creates a source file with the necessary context to change the Lisp image with this update.
Replied to Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso @woozong
#lisp #lispmachine
On a Lisp Machine I would also write commands in Lisp. Example in Symbolics Genera. One feature is the generation of option dialogs for commands...
The command Find Symbol is a convenient variant of the Lisp function APROPOS. A command takes typed arguments. Zmacs has a command Edit CP Command, which edits the source for a command-processor command, here Find Symbols. I add a new argument to only search for exported symbols...
