I think a LISP OS could catch on in todays environment,
just like Linux caught on.
The big change is that bootstrap and source distribution
over the internet is a practical way to reach the subset
of people who would be interested. Anybody with a new
OS to distribute should definitely package things
to install over the next, as well or better than
the RedHat people got Linux to work.
Many people have access to surplus hardware at work
or home, that is to say,a 486 33Mhz which was state
of the art a couple years ago, but which is now
too slow for running Windows 95 or NT combined
with the usual pile of bloated office applications.
Or the worst case, you go out and pay $1000 for a
120Mhz Pentium, 32meg-ram, 1.2-gig-disk computer
without monitor. Thats cheaper than buying a commercial
lisp license for WIN95.Use your existing monitor when
you want to hack lisp. I bought a monitor switch myself,
(for linux) because I don't have the desktop space
for multiple monitors.
As far as JAVA VM thing: Forget it.
Right now the JAVA people are starting to get involved
in a battle over virtual machines.Witness the news posting
I made about a week ago, that mentioned the Universal
VM (UVM) announcement by IBM.
I predict that the JAVA VM and built-in-support
is going to go through so many changes in the next
couple years that anybody doing something "slightly different"
will be punished severely.
"George J. Carrette" <···@delphi.com> wrote:
>Or the worst case, you go out and pay $1000 for a
>120Mhz Pentium, 32meg-ram, 1.2-gig-disk computer
>without monitor. Thats cheaper than buying a commercial
>lisp license for WIN95.Use your existing monitor when
A minor correction: Your comparison is no longer correct, now that
Harlequin is selling LispWorks 4.0 on Win95/NT for about $500.
Lawrence G. Mayka
·······@sprynet.com