why is there not a lisp pc?
in [Lisp]
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From: gavino on 30 Dec 2009 21:33 On Dec 29, 6:30 am, "Captain Obvious" <udode...(a)users.sourceforge.net> wrote: > ??>> Modern personal computers are able to run Lisp code, but PCs > ??>> are not truly "Lisp Machines" as far as I see. > > EV> Modern mobile phones aren't phones either, the "Phone" in the iPhone is > EV> just another unix process... > > Particularly for iPhone you can see components here: > > http://www.isuppli.com/News/Pages/iPhone-3G-S-Carries-178-96-BOM-and-... > > There is "Application processor" ARM core from Samsung, > and "Baseband" -- Dual ARM826 and ARM7Core. almost like adam smith wrote: a specialization and division of labor
From: gavino on 30 Dec 2009 21:39 On Dec 29, 7:41 am, Tamas K Papp <tkp...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:48:22 +0200, Victor wrote: > > On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:31:14 +0200, Tamas K Papp <tkp...(a)gmail.com> > > wrote: > > >> On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:03:00 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > >>> gavino <gavcom...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >>>> why is there not a lisp pc for under $300? > > >>> There once were lisp machines, in the 1980s. Look up "lisp machine" > >>> in wikipedia for some interesting history. > > >> I have a Dell laptop. It runs Lisp. That makes it a Lisp PC. > > > Tamas, AFAIU Lisp Machines were not only merely able to run Lisp > > compiler/interpreter but substantial parts of the operating system and > > related system software was written in Lisp, creating an environment for > > convenient development in Lisp. > > Yes, I know what LM were. But I fail to see the big benefit. Of > course it is "nice" if the OS is written in the same language as an > application, but as long as they can communicate, it does not matter > much. Convenience surely does not depend on that. Would my > SBCL+SLIME+Emacs environment be "more convenient" if it was ticking on > top of a LM? Why would I care? > > > And that's if we put specific details in their hardware design to > > improve Lisp interpreter performance. > > Or---and I know that this sounds crazy---you can just take advantage > of off-the-shelf hardware, especially the low price and ever improving > performance, and maybe compile (maybe JIT) your code, so that you don't > need a hardware interpreter. Just a wild idea. > > > Modern personal computers are able to run Lisp code, but PCs are not > > truly "Lisp Machines" as far as I see. > > I think that the distinction is academic. Modern CPUs have so many > layers anyway that I don't really care if the topmost layer exposed to > the software is some variant of Lisp or not. If we had a "Lisp machine" > today, it would most likely be a "microcode machine" that implements > some Lisp. And then we would have gavino trolling about how it is not > a LM. > > I have noticed that some people are nostalgic about Lisp Machines, and > I appreciate the sentiment, but to me they look like nothing but a > glorious dead end. And incidentally, the failure of the Lisp Machine > market provided another opportunity for people to write Lisp off. > > Cheers, > > Tamas YOU are a real unhapy guy. I suggest going hogging.
From: gavino on 30 Dec 2009 21:41 On Dec 29, 11:50 am, Alan Mackenzie <a...(a)muc.de> wrote: > Tamas K Papp <tkp...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:48:22 +0200, Victor wrote: > >> On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:31:14 +0200, Tamas K Papp <tkp...(a)gmail.com> > >> wrote: > >>> On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:03:00 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > >>>> gavino <gavcom...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >>>>> why is there not a lisp pc for under $300? > >>>> There once were lisp machines, in the 1980s. Look up "lisp machine" > >>>> in wikipedia for some interesting history. > >>> I have a Dell laptop. It runs Lisp. That makes it a Lisp PC. > >> Tamas, AFAIU Lisp Machines were not only merely able to run Lisp > >> compiler/interpreter but substantial parts of the operating system and > >> related system software was written in Lisp, creating an environment for > >> convenient development in Lisp. > > Yes, I know what LM were. But I fail to see the big benefit. > > You've presumably never used (or played on) one. > > > Of course it is "nice" if the OS is written in the same language as an > > application, but as long as they can communicate, it does not matter > > much. > > Not only was the Lisp Machine's OS written in lisp, its (microcoded) > object code embodied lisp. For example, the "call" instruction just > pushed the address of a function onto a stack, the actual call being done > after the last argument has been evaluated (the opcode for this > evaluation itself containing a "last operand" field). > > > Convenience surely does not depend on that. Would my SBCL+SLIME+Emacs > > environment be "more convenient" if it was ticking on top of a LM? > > Yes. Perhaps not for any single great feature, more lots of little > things which are annoyances on Windows or GNU simply just worked on a LM. > Think of doing everything in Emacs, only more so. > > > Why would I care? > >> And that's if we put specific details in their hardware design to > >> improve Lisp interpreter performance. > > More Lisp object code, though there was of course an interpreter too. > > > > > Or---and I know that this sounds crazy---you can just take advantage > > of off-the-shelf hardware, especially the low price and ever improving > > performance, and maybe compile (maybe JIT) your code, so that you don't > > need a hardware interpreter. Just a wild idea. > >> Modern personal computers are able to run Lisp code, but PCs are not > >> truly "Lisp Machines" as far as I see. > > I think that the distinction is academic. Modern CPUs have so many > > layers anyway that I don't really care if the topmost layer exposed to > > the software is some variant of Lisp or not. If we had a "Lisp machine" > > today, it would most likely be a "microcode machine" that implements > > some Lisp. And then we would have gavino trolling about how it is not > > a LM. > > I have noticed that some people are nostalgic about Lisp Machines, and > > I appreciate the sentiment, but to me they look like nothing but a > > glorious dead end. And incidentally, the failure of the Lisp Machine > > market provided another opportunity for people to write Lisp off. > > Yes indeed. The Intel PC (language: C) won over the Lisp Machine > (language: lisp). My own opinion (for what it's worth) is that it takes > a much more capable programmer to master Lisp than C, and in the late > 1980s there weren't enough Lispers around to make a PC priced LM > economic. > > > Cheers, > > Tamas > > -- > Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). I would buy one if it were not too expensive. many also say windows won, but I don't feel like a winner on it...in fact I am on openBSD now and feel great!
From: gavino on 31 Dec 2009 05:30 On Dec 29, 1:41 pm, Tamas K Papp <tkp...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:59:25 -0800, Citizen Jimserac wrote: > > Gavino has a point and implies something, I think, which I will try to > > extrapolate on. > > Gavino doesn't even understand his own questions, even if they > accidentally make sense. Him having a point is a rather far-fetched > idea. > > > Observe the appalling waste of money on cancer "research" - yes some > > breakthroughs over the years, even major ones, but how much of that > > money is being wasted, one wonders, on barking up the wrong tree in the > > wrong forest for the wrong reasons. See "The Secret History of the War > > on Cancer" by Davis for details. > > > Think of the impact that freely available Lisp Machine and Symbolics > > type software would have on these activities! > > You didn't provide any arguments to substantiate this. I don't deny > the possibility that Lisp machines are a neat thing to have, but to > argue that they provide some magical benefit that revolutionizes > cancer research etc is nonsensical. > > Here is a puzzle for you: if Lisp machines are so great, why don't we > have any nowadays? It is not that they are prohibitively expensive to > make. As Pascal remarked above, you can write a Lisp VM on an Intel > PC and have your very own Lisp Machine, with many (if not all) of the > claimed benefits. But no one is doing this, so the benefits must be > quite small. > > Cheers, > > Tamas Lol I only make a point by accident? LOl wow thats kinda codescending. You could say you sound like you have a pointy head. LOl As far as the old stale why don't we have X if its so good, that leads you down the path of just using windows, or more interestingly, why did bush win 2 elections if he was so bad?
From: gavino on 31 Dec 2009 05:33
On Dec 30, 2:31 am, Mahesh Subramaniya <mahesh...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On 12/29/09 12:28 PM, gavino wrote:> why is there not a lisp pc for under $300? > > > with power of lisp could be quite grand.. > > So, why do we need a lisp PC basically? > I'm a novice user in lisp. Trying to understand few things in the world > of Lisp. > > - MS. same reason you need a windows xp pc |