#symbolics — Public Fediverse posts

@screwlisp

You can pick up the document 'Signalling and Handling Conditions' from this index page:

http://nhplace.com/kent/ZL/

It was longer than I thought it would be, but I think you'll find it interesting to see what the Zetalisp condition system (which inspired the Common Lisp condition system) looked like.

In spirit, it was much the same. The biggest differences are:

* The CL system has 'active' restarts, where the ZL system had a passive thing where you returned a value to the case context and hoped that it would do the thing you wanted. It felt quite a bit more error-prone (if you'll pardon the reuse of 'error' here, maybe I should say 'mistake-prone').

* The ZL condition system offers a lot of really low-level stuff that did not seem proper for CL.

* The set of operations offered in ZL was richer, but also a lot more complicated, I thought, and I worried people would not really see what it was trying to do.

* Obviously, the ZL system was based on Flavors, not CLOS, and made reference to a lot of LispM-specific packages.

* The document was published in January, 1983 and identifies itself as part of Symbolics Release 4.0.

There are other differences as well.

#Zetalisp #LispMachine #LispMachines #Symbolics #LispM
#ConditionHandling #ConditionSystem #ErrorSystem #ErrorHandling #CommonLisp #CL #Flavors #CLOS #History #ComputerHistory
#InternetArchive #Bitsavers

The always awesome Asianometry channel covered Lisp, early AI, and the Lisp Machines earlier this year:

“A Cult AI Computer’s Boom And Bust”, Asianometry (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sV7C6Ezl35A).

#Video #Asianometry #Lisp #AI #LispMachines #Symbolics #YouTube

Wise, sobering words 😞:

“The Lost Cause Of The Lisp Machines”, Tim Bradshaw (https://www.tfeb.org/fragments/2025/11/18/the-lost-cause-of-the-lisp-machines/).

Via HN: https://www.tfeb.org/fragments/2025/11/18/the-lost-cause-of-the-lisp-machines/

On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/rifpe8/lost_cause_lisp_machines

#Lisp #LispMachines #Symbolics #Nostalgia #Programming #IDE #Hardware

#symbolics #lispmachines #genera #lisp
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325709617062?hash=item4bd5ce57a6:g:pWUAAOSwNIJkmhFE&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4OPv%2BaG23GBv6TS3E8I%2FruyybIuR2CI%2FRiJ%2FjXWOoOkFeqwIZh2h2JZXxyuvmzdSNEJDMDEHAj0Vfqz47PvFreKLpLWGvkxYZe5Sw9NsO%2BKiOysDQo1D8iAMk%2B9lEYRdsTY0ItcQYh7jJcP8C54xOaCGfrfy3A8wPbyWPV%2FZwl8J0lQeLMRsBIvLhNlC29oVM0%2BDgg70%2FKAqTWvbzurLgxd%2FCoEAxhdHKiEi8a%2FDpDRInjxdr8j%2BWPRlbyRoyKWPdwKaKIehYUzn5xZLUm2%2BpM2Phn%2Buffit465sMPbt4b1p%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4acuq73Yg

could it be that the #Symbolics dream was little more than the infantile wish that compels the subject to undermine their personal wish-fulfillment, ie the Freudian death drive?

in other words, shouldn't the dream be to see #LispMachines succeed, rather than one particular (corporate, commercial) realization of it?

makes you think.