“Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine, Lisp Machine is Fun!”

Published on: Monday August 24 2009
bolix2
bolix3
This entry was written by Stanislav , posted on Monday August 24 2009 , filed under Distractions, LispMachine, NonLoper, ShouldersGiants, SoftwareArchaeology, Symbolics . Bookmark the permalink . Post a comment below or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

10 Responses to ““Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine, Lisp Machine is Fun!””

  • x says:
    August 25, 2009 at 4:29 am

    I never realised how big the borders are on those monitors. What size is the viewable area?

    Reply
  • stas says:
    August 25, 2009 at 6:54 am

    Dear x,

    The screen is 17 inches diagonally. The image is surprisingly sharp for a display built in 1986 - roughly comparable with that of a cheap LCD today. Symbolics (a one-man company now) also sells 19 inch screens which more closely resemble modern CRTs. Those were an extra $300. I did not purchase the upgraded console, as I intend to build a VGA adapter and get rid of the fragile, unwieldy console entirely. This is a somewhat nontrivial project, as the console's electronics handle the keyboard, mouse, digital audio, and serial port in addition to video.

    Reply
  • tinman says:
    August 25, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    Did I get this right? You bought a Lisp Machine from Symbolics and now have it at home?

    Reply
  • stas says:
    August 25, 2009 at 5:15 pm

    Dear tinman,

    That's right. I picked it up at D. K. Schmidt's house last Friday.

    Reply
  • tinman says:
    August 25, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    Now you'll be a real magnet for the ladies. Chicks totally dig Symbolics!

    How's your lisp OS project going? Gearing up for world domination already?

    Judging from your web-site, you look like the lonely spiritual successor of the tunes-cult. I came to late to join them, unfortunately.

    Reply
  • Alex says:
    August 28, 2009 at 2:25 am

    What a wonderful purchase. Is it currently functional? Please promise to do at least one hands-on "feature" 🙂

    Reply
  • stas says:
    August 28, 2009 at 9:04 am

    Dear Alex,

    The machine is in very good condition and works perfectly. I intend to run it very sparingly until I finish building my solid-state substitute for the ancient ESDI disk inside.

    I will post screenshots, once I learn how to capture them. There are plenty of Genera screenshots available on the Net even now, however. I invite you to look at some:

    http://www.sts.tu-harburg.de/~r.f.moeller/symbolics-info/development-environment/index.html

    Reply
  • Joel Franusic says:
    October 11, 2010 at 1:50 am

    Have you been able to find a solid-state substitue for the ESDI disk in your 3620? I just got a MacIvory, and I too, want to replace its disk with an solid-state drive.

    Reply
  • Stanislav says:
    October 11, 2010 at 1:45 pm

    Dear Joel,

    As far as I know, no such thing is available commercially. I intend to build one. The MacIvory, however, doesn't use ESDI. It uses ordinary SCSI. Drives with this interface (as well as SCSI-to-IDE converters, to which one might attach an off-the-shelf solid state disk) are easy to find.

    Yours,
    -Stanislav

    Reply

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