https://fultonsramblings.substack.com/p/why-we-need-lisp-machines
Fulton's ramblings
SubscribeSign in
Share this post
Why we need lisp machines
fultonsramblings.substack.com
Copy link
Twitter
Facebook
Email
Why we need lisp machines
A personal mind dump on operating systems
Fulton 9
[https] Mar 24
Computers have changed a lot in 51 years. 51 years ago computers were
so expensive that we had to have multiple users per machine to make
it financially feasible. 51 years ago most multi-user operating
systems were messy, inconstant, and in general a pain in the ass. So
some dude at Bell Labs built a little OS to fix the pain in the
assery of multi-user OS's and they did a wonderful job.
Unix was built for this:
[https]
Now it runs on this:
[https]
and pretty much everything else, from phones to servers to cars. It's
good enough and standard.
UNIX was designed as a self-contained system. you simply didn't have
other computers you would rely on. You had your department's
computer, and you would sometimes send messages and files to their
department computers. That's the full extent of UNIX's intended
networking abilty''s.
A modern UNIX system isn't self-contained. I have 4 UNIX systems on
my desk (Desktop, laptop, iPhone, iPad) I'm contentiously using the
cloud (iCloud for photos, GitHub for text files, Dropbox for
everything else) to sync files between these machines. The cloud is
just a workaround for UNIX's self-contained nature
Then we add a gazillion programming languages, VMs, Containers, and a
million other things, UNIX is a bloated mess of workaround for its
own problems. We need a replacement, something that can be built for
the modern world using technologies that are clean, secure, and
extendable
Luckily UNIX wasn't the only thing being built in the 70s and 80s,
the wonderful people at MIT also needed a timesharing system for
their PDP-10. So in 1967, they built ITS (Incompatible Timesharing
System). It had some interesting design choices, no passwords, no
file permissions, your shell was a binary debugger, etc. This is
terrible for production use, but it's a hacker's dream come true and
it gave us Emacs and scheme. It also gave us a program called
MacLisp.
MacLisp would eventually evolve into Common Lisp in 1984, but it was
also used in MIT's cadr LISP machines starting in 1973. After
promising results for the internal machines, MIT sold the rights to
their LISP machine to two companies: Symbolics and LMI.
Symbolics is the more iconic of the two, but I wasn't able to get my
hands on a good emulator or the source, but I was able to talk to
Alfred M. Szmidt. He maintains the LambdaDelta project and is
familiar with "[the LMI] Lambda, [the Symbolics] 36xx to some extent,
and [the TI] Explorer" lisp machines. He was kind enough to answer my
many questions and give me wonderful insight into how these machines
worked and were used (I'm definitely writing a full post on the
history of LISP machines). I also personally used his emulator to
mess around with the lisp machine for myself.
[https]An emulated lambda lisp machine running the zmacs editor
These machines used specialized hardware and microcode to optimize
for the lisp environments (Because of microcode you could run UNIX
and the Lisp OS at the same time). They were programmed in lisp the
whole way down and could be run code interpreted for convenience or
compiled to microcode for efficiency. You could open up system
functions in the editor, modify and compile them while the machine
was running. Everything worked in a single address space, programs
could talk to each other in ways operating systems of today couldn't
dream of. They had Lisp worlds delivered over the network, a
version-controlled filesystem, high-resolution displays, and proper
windowing GUI's.
Lisp machines are conceptually beautiful, but they were
computationally heavy and expensive. They required a lot of memory
and a frame buffer. While UNIX could run on much less memory and a
Text Terminal. UNIX was cheaper and it won out, but when the price of
frame buffers and memory came down UNIX was well established and good
enough.
UNIX isn't good enough anymore and it's getting worse. We need a new
system and we have more than enough frame buffers and memory for a
lisp machine.
With lisp machines, we can cut out the complicated multi-language,
multi library mess from the stack, eliminate memory leaks and
questions of type safety, binary exploits, and millions of lines of
sheer complexity that clog up modern computers.
A new operating system means we can explore new ideas in new ways.
Distributed file systems? Sure. Persistent DIMMs show a lot of
potential in a lispy world (Pun intended...). There is a massive hole
forming in computing, a hole lisp machines can fill.
This won't happen overnight, it will probably take UNIX getting worse
(maybe even a lot worse) for people to really start looking at new
operating systems, but they will start looking for UNIX alternatives
and we should have a working lisp machine ready for them.
Sources:
A good explanation for why UNIX sucks and need to be replaced: https:
//archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/new_type_of_computer/
Lambda LISP machine docs's: https://tumbleweed.nu/lm-3/
A little lisp machine history https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
dMFLQ1t7iaQ
Thank you Alfred M. Szmidt for answering my questions and giving me
enough material for 3 posts.
9 Share
[https]
[ ]
Create your profile
[ ]
Your name[ ]Your bio[ ]
[ ][ ] Subscribe to the newsletter
0 subscriptions will be displayed on your profile (edit)
Skip for now
Save & Post Comment
Only paid subscribers can comment on this post
Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
Check your email
For your security, we need to re-authenticate you.
Click the link we sent to , or click here to sign in.
Lars
6 hr agoLiked by Fulton
Supergood thoughts!! I 100% agree. Lyckily we have Emacs as a
[https] personal "lisp machine"... but the change will come towards a
full Lisp OS. I'm sure
Expand full comment
Reply
GregorMendel
6 hr ago
[https] Check out Urbit. It's being built.
Expand full comment
Reply
2 replies
7 more comments...
TopNewCommunity
No posts
Ready for more?
[ ]Subscribe
(c) 2022 Fulton
Privacy [?] Terms [?] Collection notice
Publish on Substack
Substack is the home for great writing
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on
JavaScript or unblock scripts