Hello All,
This is a recount of my adventure in buying a Lisp Machine...
I too had heard about the legendary Lisp Machines, and decided I wanted
one when I saw it on E-Bay. I thought I could get it cheaply, but to
no avail.
(My background is Mechanical / Aerospace engineering, but I have been a
programmer on the trading floor of a bank for the past 6 years. I
discovered Lisp a year and a half ago, and have been using CMUCL and
the Franz trial version for Linux.)
I was outbid by Daniel (cyberdine), (I wish you the best of luck, Daniel
- let me know how it goes!! ) - so I ended up driving down to Dave
Schmidt's place in Burke, Virginia, to buy one directly from him, 3 days
ago.
I spent the day building an XL1200 with him, (we started at 9 in the
morning and ended up at about 9:30 at night!!!). This was a great
experience - seeing his shop, testing memory chips, and selecting only
good processor boards and input output boards so that no tests failed.
Between pizza and beer and his good hospitality, we talked Lisp and Lisp
Machines. For example, I was shown each of the system boards, how to
determine the proper voltage readings across certain resistors, how to
insert the boards, and problems with parts most likely to induce
errors. The machine and the monitor can be taken apart and serviced,
unlike today's disposable computers.
For 3500$ with a 90 day working guarantee, and ALL software on
CD-ROM (genera 8.3, CLIM 2.1, all layered products, and lots more), a
CD-rom, a scsi disk, an esdi disk (for redundancy and paging), a
monitor, keyboard, mouse, I think this is the way to go. ( The parts
all look spanking brand new, and are put through a battery of tests, so
you can be assured you will have some reliability as well as a good
clear monitor ). The price may seem expensive, but after spending the
day with Dave, I think that even a very cheaply acquired machine might
take a bit of money (possibly $700-$1000 minimum) to get it into good
working order.
Additionally, I think just hanging out with Dave, learning about the
internals of the machines, and being in a room full of maybe 20-30 or
more symbolic's machines, and loads of spare parts, for a day was well
worth it.
The only issue with the machine is that it comes with no hard copy
manuals (though all the documentation is viewable on line), as Dave has
only a couple of sets of manuals for his own use. I did manage to get
the Genera Workbook, and Genera concepts manual, as well as a bunch of
promotional Symbolics brochures from Dave. I hope to get some manuals
soon.
Additionally, the machines are heavy, and fragile(from a shipping point
of view) . You DONT want to drop this 100 pound baby, for fear of
damaging the system boards. I was lucky enough to be a 4 hour drive
from Dave's workshop, so I drove the machine back home. There are
shippers who specialize in fragile things like antiques, so maybe this
is how I would ship it, if I had to.
Anyway, I have started playing with my XL1200, and am having a lot of
fun.
Dave Linenberg
········@home.com
In article <················@home.com>,
dave linenberg <········@home.com> wrote:
> Anyway, I have started playing with my XL1200, and am having a lot of
> fun.
Congratulations on your new XL1200! I got mine from Dave
about 2 months ago, and have been having a great time with
it.
If you haven't already, make sure you've got a strong clean
source of power, like a big (>700W, ~1400 VA) UPS. It took
a blown console to remind me :-(
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
What are you going to do with it?
dave linenberg wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> This is a recount of my adventure in buying a Lisp Machine...
>
> I too had heard about the legendary Lisp Machines, and decided I wanted
> one when I saw it on E-Bay. I thought I could get it cheaply, but to
> no avail.
>
> (My background is Mechanical / Aerospace engineering, but I have been a
> programmer on the trading floor of a bank for the past 6 years. I
> discovered Lisp a year and a half ago, and have been using CMUCL and
> the Franz trial version for Linux.)
>
> I was outbid by Daniel (cyberdine), (I wish you the best of luck, Daniel
> - let me know how it goes!! ) - so I ended up driving down to Dave
> Schmidt's place in Burke, Virginia, to buy one directly from him, 3 days
> ago.
>
> I spent the day building an XL1200 with him, (we started at 9 in the
> morning and ended up at about 9:30 at night!!!). This was a great
> experience - seeing his shop, testing memory chips, and selecting only
> good processor boards and input output boards so that no tests failed.
> Between pizza and beer and his good hospitality, we talked Lisp and Lisp
> Machines. For example, I was shown each of the system boards, how to
> determine the proper voltage readings across certain resistors, how to
> insert the boards, and problems with parts most likely to induce
> errors. The machine and the monitor can be taken apart and serviced,
> unlike today's disposable computers.
>
> For 3500$ with a 90 day working guarantee, and ALL software on
> CD-ROM (genera 8.3, CLIM 2.1, all layered products, and lots more), a
> CD-rom, a scsi disk, an esdi disk (for redundancy and paging), a
> monitor, keyboard, mouse, I think this is the way to go. ( The parts
> all look spanking brand new, and are put through a battery of tests, so
> you can be assured you will have some reliability as well as a good
> clear monitor ). The price may seem expensive, but after spending the
> day with Dave, I think that even a very cheaply acquired machine might
> take a bit of money (possibly $700-$1000 minimum) to get it into good
> working order.
>
> Additionally, I think just hanging out with Dave, learning about the
> internals of the machines, and being in a room full of maybe 20-30 or
> more symbolic's machines, and loads of spare parts, for a day was well
> worth it.
>
> The only issue with the machine is that it comes with no hard copy
> manuals (though all the documentation is viewable on line), as Dave has
> only a couple of sets of manuals for his own use. I did manage to get
> the Genera Workbook, and Genera concepts manual, as well as a bunch of
> promotional Symbolics brochures from Dave. I hope to get some manuals
> soon.
>
> Additionally, the machines are heavy, and fragile(from a shipping point
> of view) . You DONT want to drop this 100 pound baby, for fear of
> damaging the system boards. I was lucky enough to be a 4 hour drive
> from Dave's workshop, so I drove the machine back home. There are
> shippers who specialize in fragile things like antiques, so maybe this
> is how I would ship it, if I had to.
>
> Anyway, I have started playing with my XL1200, and am having a lot of
> fun.
>
> Dave Linenberg
> ········@home.com
"Andrew K. Wolven" wrote:
> What are you going to do with it?
Besides owning a piece of history, (if you haven't read "The Hackers", by
Steven Levy, go out and buy it - it has a lot of Lisp history in it - and you
will want to own your own machine!) I plan on using it as a platform to
really *explore*, learn, and play with Lisp.
There is a TON of source code in the machine, so certainly I will enjoy
looking and learning from that. It also has CLIM, which I've always wanted
to play with.
I also have some pet projects that I've been working on in CMUCL, and I plan
to develop the non-platform specific stuff on the Lisp machine.
Just playing with the machine, you really feel like you are *in* the code,
completely focused. The machine is powerful enough to drive the interface,
and that is really all that matters. There are some amazing features in the
machine ( like drawing a new rectangular Listener anywhere you want, on the
screen, hopping from documentation, to the editor to the Listener seemlessly,
clicking on any text, and inspecting it, or viewing it in many ways... ).
The integration is absolutely stunning.
Dave
In article <·················@home.com>,
dave linenberg <········@home.com> wrote:
> Just playing with the machine, you really feel like you are *in* the
code,
> completely focused. The machine is powerful enough to drive the
interface,
> and that is really all that matters. There are some amazing features
in the
> machine ( like drawing a new rectangular Listener anywhere you want,
on the
> screen, hopping from documentation, to the editor to the Listener
seemlessly,
> clicking on any text, and inspecting it, or viewing it in many
ways... ).
> The integration is absolutely stunning.
This is what brought me back to LispM's after a decade of absence. I
was reading Christopher Alexander's "A Timeless Way of Building" just
a day after reading Jef Raskin's "The Humane Interface" which tends to
set one's mind to thinking hard about interfaces. I was rather
forcefully struck by how much I disliked MS Visual Studio even after
all these years. A few days of meditation on the subject revealed
three all-time favorites: The Symbolics and LMI systems, my own
early-80's FIG-Forth system (remnants of which still live on in my
emacs keybindings), and a late-80's system called Fifth that
was a Forth with object-level access checking and a Smalltalk-like
browser, and documentation and cross-referencing similar to Zmacs.
Unfortunately, my old copy of Fifth was unreadable, and as much as I
love my Apple II FIG-Forth system, 64k and 16 bits is just a tad too
small. I initially dismissed the LispM's as being too old and creaky
and outdated, but playing with Xanalys' LispWorks brought lots of
memories back without quite satisfying the craving, so I took the
plunge and called Dave Schmidt.
I've had a couple of months now with my system, and even as old as it
is, Genera is still the epitome of habitability among development
systems, with that sort of efficiency, flexibility and pleasantness
honed by years of actual use and constant tweaking. Every time I sit
down at that console it feels like home.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
In article <···········@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Michael Parker <··········@my-deja.com> writes:
> I've had a couple of months now with my system, and even as old as it
> is, Genera is still the epitome of habitability among development
> systems, with that sort of efficiency, flexibility and pleasantness
> honed by years of actual use and constant tweaking. Every time I sit
> down at that console it feels like home.
And then you have to go back to worrying about broken GNU toolchains,
"release early, release often" linux kernels and you just want to cry.
Mike McDonald
·······@mikemac.com
Mike McDonald <·······@mikemac.com> wrote in message
······················@typhoon.aracnet.com...
> > I've had a couple of months now with my system, and even as old as it
> > is, Genera is still the epitome of habitability among development
> > systems, with that sort of efficiency, flexibility and pleasantness
> > honed by years of actual use and constant tweaking. Every time I sit
> > down at that console it feels like home.
>
> And then you have to go back to worrying about broken GNU toolchains,
> "release early, release often" linux kernels and you just want to cry.
Thankfully no. My other machine runs NeXTStep.
Mike McDonald <·······@mikemac.com> wrote in message
······················@typhoon.aracnet.com...
>
> > I've had a couple of months now with my system, and even as old as it
> > is, Genera is still the epitome of habitability among development
> > systems, with that sort of efficiency, flexibility and pleasantness
> > honed by years of actual use and constant tweaking. Every time I sit
> > down at that console it feels like home.
>
> And then you have to go back to worrying about broken GNU toolchains,
> "release early, release often" linux kernels and you just want to cry.
Thankfully no. My other machine runs NeXTStep.
In article <················@home.com>,
dave linenberg <········@home.com> writes:
> Hello All,
>
> This is a recount of my adventure in buying a Lisp Machine...
> I was outbid by Daniel (cyberdine), (I wish you the best of luck, Daniel
> - let me know how it goes!! ) - so I ended up driving down to Dave
> Schmidt's place in Burke, Virginia, to buy one directly from him, 3 days
> ago.
I wish you had told us before hand. Then we could have had you find out why
their website has been down for ages! :-)
> For 3500$ with a 90 day working guarantee, and ALL software on
> CD-ROM (genera 8.3, CLIM 2.1, all layered products, and lots more), a
> CD-rom, a scsi disk, an esdi disk (for redundancy and paging), a
> monitor, keyboard, mouse, I think this is the way to go.
He gave you an 8.3 CD? The ······@···@! I bought my XL1201 from him five
years ago and he said that he was just about out of 8.3 CDs and asked if I'd
wait for the 8.5 CDs "next month". Being the nice guy (aka sucker!) that I am,
I said OK. Well, 8.5 for XL's still hasn't been released and I still don't
have my Genera CDs! grumble, grumble, grumble!
> The only issue with the machine is that it comes with no hard copy
> manuals (though all the documentation is viewable on line), as Dave has
> only a couple of sets of manuals for his own use. I did manage to get
> the Genera Workbook, and Genera concepts manual, as well as a bunch of
> promotional Symbolics brochures from Dave. I hope to get some manuals
> soon.
I guess I'm wierd but I prefer the hardcopy manuals to the online versions
(even though they're the same thing). I find it easier for me to use the
hardcopy versions. Good luck in finding a set. (Wait till you get the shipping
bill for them!)
> Anyway, I have started playing with my XL1200, and am having a lot of
> fun.
That's what LispMs are for, having fun!
Mike McDonald
·······@mikemac.com
In article <·····················@typhoon.aracnet.com>,
·······@mikemac.com wrote:
> He gave you an 8.3 CD? The ······@···@! I bought my XL1201 from him five
> years ago and he said that he was just about out of 8.3 CDs and asked if I'd
> wait for the 8.5 CDs "next month". Being the nice guy (aka sucker!) that I am,
> I said OK. Well, 8.5 for XL's still hasn't been released and I still don't
> have my Genera CDs! grumble, grumble, grumble!
Hint: You should also get the CLIM 2.1 CD, the Symbolics Layered Products
CD (Concordia, Joshua, KEE, DNA) and the Statice Development CD.
> I guess I'm wierd but I prefer the hardcopy manuals to the online versions
> (even though they're the same thing). I find it easier for me to use the
> hardcopy versions. Good luck in finding a set. (Wait till you get the shipping
> bill for them!)
I'm still missing a few. I don't have the CLIM 2 (sigh) manual or most
of the S-Product manuals. Would be interesting to have. On the
other hand I have a very complete Genera manual set and a few exotic
ones (OPS5, Windows and Flavors Student Notes, S-Utilities,
Color System, Fortran, Technical Summary, Plexi, KEE manuals,
...).
--
Rainer Joswig, Hamburg, Germany
Email: ·············@corporate-world.lisp.de
On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 18:19:27 +0100, Rainer Joswig
<······@corporate-world.lisp.de> wrote:
> Hint: You should also get the CLIM 2.1 CD, the Symbolics Layered Products
> CD (Concordia, Joshua, KEE, DNA) and the Statice Development CD.
What is DNA?
Paolo
In article <····························@4ax.com>,
Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it> wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 18:19:27 +0100, Rainer Joswig
><······@corporate-world.lisp.de> wrote:
>
>> Hint: You should also get the CLIM 2.1 CD, the Symbolics Layered Products
>> CD (Concordia, Joshua, KEE, DNA) and the Statice Development CD.
>
>What is DNA?
DECnet, IIRC.
--
Barry Margolin, ······@genuity.net
Genuity, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
In article <····························@4ax.com>, Paolo Amoroso
<·······@mclink.it> wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 18:19:27 +0100, Rainer Joswig
> <······@corporate-world.lisp.de> wrote:
>
> > Hint: You should also get the CLIM 2.1 CD, the Symbolics Layered Products
> > CD (Concordia, Joshua, KEE, DNA) and the Statice Development CD.
>
> What is DNA?
"Digital Network Architecture".
Lisp machines as clients or servers using DECnet protocols
(mail, file, login, tape, ...).
--
Rainer Joswig, Hamburg, Germany
Email: ·············@corporate-world.lisp.de
In article <·····················@typhoon.aracnet.com>,
·······@mikemac.com (Mike McDonald) writes:
> He gave you an 8.3 CD? The ······@···@! I bought my XL1201 from him five
> years ago and he said that he was just about out of 8.3 CDs and asked if I'd
> wait for the 8.5 CDs "next month". Being the nice guy (aka sucker!) that I am,
> I said OK. Well, 8.5 for XL's still hasn't been released and I still don't
> have my Genera CDs! grumble, grumble, grumble!
As a follow up, I contacted Schmidt and he's sending me a set of the CDs!
And he's honoring the almost four year old offer too!!!! So, I should have a
full set of CDs by the end of this week or early next week. David really is a
nice guy to deal with and I'm afraid my tongue in check sarcasm did't come
across in the above paragraph.
Hopefully my XL1201 will still work next week after I put it on a UPS. I
haven't turned it on in almost two years! :-( If everything goes nicely, I
shoudl be back up and hacking LispMs in a week or two.
Mike McDonald
·······@mikemac.com