Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 16:11:41 01/24/04
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On January 24, 2004 at 11:23:15, Randall Shane wrote: >On January 24, 2004 at 09:59:40, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >> >>What O/S was ever implemented in Lisp? I'm certainly not aware of one, although >>that does not mean there was none. But no _serious_ O/S I have ever used had >>one line of Lisp... I don't believe I said it could _not_ be done. I believe I >>implied it _should not_ be done. >> > >It was done at least once. Symbolics Lisp Machines -- http://smbx.org/ (The >Symbolics Museum). Yep. We actually had one of those. It died a graceful and well-deserved death, too. :) > >Microcode and processor support for Lisp primitives, all operating system code >and development tools written in Zetalisp. I used them for a couple of years in >the late eighties at the GE R&D center in upstate NY. > >Whether it should have been done is another issue :-) > >I actually liked using the machines, but given the limited market, the company >was doomed. While the special-purpose hardware was somewhat faster than the >general purpose hardware at the time, it was horrendously expensive, and the Sun >3's we replaced them with wer a lot more useful, and almost as fast running >Common Lisp as the Symbolics machines wer running Zetalisp.
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