#symbolics — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #symbolics, aggregated by home.social.
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And I think that's the important bit. It hits a sweet spot for functionality and ubiquity, _and_ it is freeform enough that I don't have to think in advance how I want to use it—I literally adapt queries and files to the project I'm working on, as I go.
It's a "whatever" box in the context of, "I'm down for whatever you're into, boss" box. But it will do "whatever", deterministically. By cleverly combining pretty, extensible, and customizable rendering of the results of queries over an ad-hoc #markdown-based datastore.
Now, I know that (especially after reading the mention of #symbolics #lispmachine in the first post), someone's gonna say "but emacs!". And sure, follow your bliss, not stepping into that one. Suffice it to say, I'm well past mid career and have tried to love Emacs, perennially, since I started. I have accepted that it meets neither my workflow nor aesthetic needs (and I'll thank you for trusting me on that).
I thought, for a while, that maybe I could make #VSCode be the environment I could use to do this, what with MarkdownPreviewEnhanced and other plugins. But that is an IDE optimized for developing _other_ applications, which is different from building a boat whilst sailing it.
Anyway, this is turning into something that should be a blog post, and I don't expect anyone will read this far anyway, but I thought I'd stop and give credit where credit is due. #obsidian is the closed thing to an ad-hoc productivity operating system I've ever used, and it's quietly become one of the most important pieces of software I have.
Nicely done, @obsidian and community. And nicely done, @gruber and #aaronschwartz and everyone who's made #markdown what it is.
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And I think that's the important bit. It hits a sweet spot for functionality and ubiquity, _and_ it is freeform enough that I don't have to think in advance how I want to use it—I literally adapt queries and files to the project I'm working on, as I go.
It's a "whatever" box in the context of, "I'm down for whatever you're into, boss" box. But it will do "whatever", deterministically. By cleverly combining pretty, extensible, and customizable rendering of the results of queries over an ad-hoc #markdown-based datastore.
Now, I know that (especially after reading the mention of #symbolics #lispmachine in the first post), someone's gonna say "but emacs!". And sure, follow your bliss, not stepping into that one. Suffice it to say, I'm well past mid career and have tried to love Emacs, perennially, since I started. I have accepted that it meets neither my workflow nor aesthetic needs (and I'll thank you for trusting me on that).
I thought, for a while, that maybe I could make #VSCode be the environment I could use to do this, what with MarkdownPreviewEnhanced and other plugins. But that is an IDE optimized for developing _other_ applications, which is different from building a boat whilst sailing it.
Anyway, this is turning into something that should be a blog post, and I don't expect anyone will read this far anyway, but I thought I'd stop and give credit where credit is due. #obsidian is the closed thing to an ad-hoc productivity operating system I've ever used, and it's quietly become one of the most important pieces of software I have.
Nicely done, @obsidian and community. And nicely done, @gruber and #aaronschwartz and everyone who's made #markdown what it is.
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It is #Symbolics Virtual #LispMachine running "natively" on Mac M4.
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It is #Symbolics Virtual #LispMachine running "natively" on Mac M4.
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quite the "bird"/"plane" being modeled..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RSQ6gATnQU&list=PLWRTLH_j65YganGU8ROO633CZQrAeqVTI&index=11 -
quite the "bird"/"plane" being modeled..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RSQ6gATnQU&list=PLWRTLH_j65YganGU8ROO633CZQrAeqVTI&index=11 -
Imagine having one of these jobs back in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud0HhzAK30w&list=PLWRTLH_j65YganGU8ROO633CZQrAeqVTI
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Imagine having one of these jobs back in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud0HhzAK30w&list=PLWRTLH_j65YganGU8ROO633CZQrAeqVTI
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You can pick up the document 'Signalling and Handling Conditions' from this index page:
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 -
You can pick up the document 'Signalling and Handling Conditions' from this index page:
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 -
I always liked the idea of being one of those cool Lisp programmer with the Symbolics machines doing dark wizardry on green phosphor. It looks cool, but I'm almost certain I would actually hate it. Too bad, now we can just make Google do it for us.
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I always liked the idea of being one of those cool Lisp programmer with the Symbolics machines doing dark wizardry on green phosphor. It looks cool, but I'm almost certain I would actually hate it. Too bad, now we can just make Google do it for us.
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😺🐻🐰 #satire #humor #parody #cult #philosophy #spirituality #surreal #symbolics #semiotics #cat #cats #teddy #teddies #art #artificialintelligence
🔗 New story up 🌐
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😺🐻🐰 #satire #humor #parody #cult #philosophy #spirituality #surreal #symbolics #semiotics #cat #cats #teddy #teddies #art #artificialintelligence
🔗 New story up 🌐
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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
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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
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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
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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
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😺🐻🐰 #satire #humor #parody #cult #astrology #spirituality #surreal #symbolics #semiotics #cat #cats #teddy #teddies #art #artificialintelligence
🔗 New story up 🌐
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😺🐻🐰 #cult #philosophy #spirituality #wavetheory #symbolics #semiotics #art #artificialintelligence
🔗 New story up 🌐
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Кто ближе к Настоящему ИИ: LLM… или те, кого мы игнорируем?
За последние годы мир убедил себя, что ИИ уже здесь и что он: говорит, пишет, рисует, а значит - он думает . Но что, если это всего лишь иллюзия? Что, если настоящий ИИ "молчит" и не потому что не может, а потому что "не хочет говорить", пока не будет готов нести ответственность за каждое слово? Пока все смотрели на LLM, за кулисами десятки команд по всему миру, от Токио до Сан-Паулу, десятилетиями строили архитектуры, в которых разум "рождается" не из данных, а из логики, символов и целеполагания. Эти системы не генерируют стихи, а решают задачи, которых не было в обучающих наборах. И они уже сегодня обладают зачатками того, чего LLM принципиально лишены: модели мира, теории разума и внутренней воли. В этой статье вы узнаете, почему ни одна LLM никогда не пройдёт даже базовый тест Тьюринга. Какие архитектуры уже сегодня соответствуют критериям Настоящего ИИ и почему их разработчики предпочитают молчать, а не участвовать в гонке за хайпом. Это не статья для тех, кто верит в "чудо масштабирования", она для тех, кто готов увидеть, что скрыто за завесой. Узнать больше...
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Introducing SymbolicSMT.jl for symbolic constraint solving and theorem proving! Built on Z3, test the feasibility of symbolic expressions built using Symbolics.jl. Given Constraints([x > 0, y > 0, x^2 + y^2 <= 1]), ask issatisfiable? isprovable?
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Introducing SymbolicSMT.jl for symbolic constraint solving and theorem proving! Built on Z3, test the feasibility of symbolic expressions built using Symbolics.jl. Given Constraints([x > 0, y > 0, x^2 + y^2 <= 1]), ask issatisfiable? isprovable?
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A late 1990s Symbolics brochure on 25 reasons to buy Genera. The very first reason hints at how different the compuring world was at the time: all objects can be shared among all processes.
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A late 1990s Symbolics brochure on 25 reasons to buy Genera. The very first reason hints at how different the compuring world was at the time: all objects can be shared among all processes.
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@screwlisp Thought you would be interested in this.
On the ex-Symbolics employees mailing list somebody posted a link to a "history of the Lisp machine".
https://youtu.be/sV7C6Ezl35A?si=S4uh4-JXKC2_7lOR
It's kind of long and so I didn't watch the whole thing, but just skipped around a little bit. Somebody else who did watch it said,
'Fascinating exposition. Given his mispronunciations of "CADR" and "Macsyma", it's clear that he wasn't in the room where it happened, nor spoke to anyone who was. But I can't quarrel with his research or cause-and-effect analysis of both the industry as a whole and Symbolics in particular.'
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@screwlisp Thought you would be interested in this.
On the ex-Symbolics employees mailing list somebody posted a link to a "history of the Lisp machine".
https://youtu.be/sV7C6Ezl35A?si=S4uh4-JXKC2_7lOR
It's kind of long and so I didn't watch the whole thing, but just skipped around a little bit. Somebody else who did watch it said,
'Fascinating exposition. Given his mispronunciations of "CADR" and "Macsyma", it's clear that he wasn't in the room where it happened, nor spoke to anyone who was. But I can't quarrel with his research or cause-and-effect analysis of both the industry as a whole and Symbolics in particular.'
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The document preparation system of Symbolics Lisp Machines consisted of two main hypertext tools, the Concordia authoring environment and the Document Examiner documentation browser and delivery interface. These papers describe the tools.
Supporting Document Development with Concordia
https://archive.org/details/smbx-concordia-paper-1988Document Examiner: delivery interface for hypertext documents
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/317426.317448 -
The document preparation system of Symbolics Lisp Machines consisted of two main hypertext tools, the Concordia authoring environment and the Document Examiner documentation browser and delivery interface. These papers describe the tools.
Supporting Document Development with Concordia
https://archive.org/details/smbx-concordia-paper-1988Document Examiner: delivery interface for hypertext documents
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/317426.317448 -
Earn money working on open source software #oss! New project just posted: help make wrappers to connect Symbolics.jl to SymPy. $300 bounty. Information for signing up for the #SciML small grants program are contained in the link:
https://sciml.ai/small_grants/#create_wrapper_functions_to_sympy_for_symbolicsjl_300
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Earn money working on open source software #oss! New project just posted: help make wrappers to connect Symbolics.jl to SymPy. $300 bounty. Information for signing up for the #SciML small grants program are contained in the link:
https://sciml.ai/small_grants/#create_wrapper_functions_to_sympy_for_symbolicsjl_300
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https://communitymedia.video/w/968LULd4gdi98BRLBDQ37E #interview with #gopher @someodd #haskell #technology #podcast featuring some #lisp #symbolics #reminiscences
gopher://gopher.someodd.zip
https://www.someodd.zipsomeodd starting points
Connection was a bit spotty so we talked over each other occasionally. I forgot to boost the show toot, so if you would like to boost here that would be appreciated.
Feedback about the interview and interviews generally are welcome and wanted here.
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Back in the 1980s, when my then-office-mate was developing the Japanese product for the Symbolics lisp machine, we had an electronic version of this.
It was a big pad, about 50cm x 50cm, with a stylus to pick out individual characters. This was for kanji; the hiragana and katakana were handled separately.
To watch him use it was amazing... and slow.
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Symbolics.jl now fully supports solving systems of nonlinear equations. I can now go forward with the paper I started writing in 2021. I could have rewritten my code in Python but I was too lazy.
The code in Julia is beautiful. I attached an example code, that uses a Lagrange multiplier to find an optimum of a nonlinear equation with equality constraints.
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Does the MIT Lisp Machine environment provide a document editor and a viewer, like Concordia and Document Examiner on Genera or TEdit and DInfo on Medley Interlisp? Does Zmacs support editing rich or formatted text?