From: Lars Brinkhoff
Subject: Re: Lisp Machine source code to be realeased under the BSD license?
Date:
Message-ID: <8564sdkx4t.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
From Brad Parker's web page:
After a long and interesting search I uncovered a set of 9-track
tapes which appear to be a snapshot of the MIT CADR Lisp machine
source code from around 1980.
From Wikipedia:
The Lisp Machine system software was the property of MIT, and was
licensed to Symbolics. Until 1981, they shared all the source code
with MIT and kept it on an MIT server.
[and elsewhere]
For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman single-
handedly duplicated the efforts of the Symbolics programmers to
prevent them from gaining a monopoly on the Lab's computers.
So, while this is great and exciting news, I believe the released code
is somewhat old. Does anyone have a rough idea how it compares to the
contemporary LispM environment? (Mostly Symbolics Genera, I guess.)
In article <··············@junk.nocrew.org>,
Lars Brinkhoff <·········@nocrew.org> wrote:
> So, while this is great and exciting news, I believe the released code
> is somewhat old. Does anyone have a rough idea how it compares to the
> contemporary LispM environment? (Mostly Symbolics Genera, I guess.)
It would be kind of comparable to Windows 3.x when you're used to
Windows XP, or V7 Unix versus a modern BSD/SysV/Linux. You'd recognize
it as a primitive precursor to the contemporary version.
--
Barry Margolin, ······@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
In article <··············@junk.nocrew.org>,
Lars Brinkhoff <·········@nocrew.org> wrote:
> From Brad Parker's web page:
>
> After a long and interesting search I uncovered a set of 9-track
> tapes which appear to be a snapshot of the MIT CADR Lisp machine
> source code from around 1980.
>
> From Wikipedia:
>
> The Lisp Machine system software was the property of MIT, and was
> licensed to Symbolics. Until 1981, they shared all the source code
> with MIT and kept it on an MIT server.
>
> [and elsewhere]
>
> For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman single-
> handedly duplicated the efforts of the Symbolics programmers to
> prevent them from gaining a monopoly on the Lab's computers.
>
> So, while this is great and exciting news, I believe the released code
> is somewhat old. Does anyone have a rough idea how it compares to the
> contemporary LispM environment? (Mostly Symbolics Genera, I guess.)
The main MIT Lispm related systems were from LMI, TI and Symbolics.
LMI is long defunct. TI has long given up on their Lisp Machine
business. Symbolics is only selling some of their old stuff.
Probably the most advanced and diverse offering was from Symbolics.
The Symbolics system is probably a few hundred man years more advanced
then what the MIT Lispm from 1980 had/was. Genera 8.3 runs on several
different architecture families (36xx, Ivory and Ivory emulator).
Genera also supports a lot of different hardware components (different
framebuffers (with color), framegrabbers, Ethernet, different Bus systems, SCSI, ...).
One of the most importance differences is the support for
Internet-related protocols (TCP/IP, Telnet, DNS, NFS, X, DNS, SMTP,
FTP, PING, Finger, Talk, ...).
Genera also comes with a more advanced Window System (Dynamic Windows)
and CLIM 2.
Genera supports ZetaLisp (a renamed version of Lisp Machine Lisp),
Symbolics Common Lisp and some other Common Lisp variants (including CLOS).
Genera had an OO-Database, a great documentation system and other layered
software.
The old MIT Lisp machine is quite a bit simpler and developed
with one OO-System (instead three in Genera) and only one Lisp dialect
(compared to several in Genera). Which is a plus, IMHO.