[LispM] Lisp Machines

[Daniel Rudin]

Hi Dave, 

i'm jealous about your day with Dave Schmidt and all the experiences and infos you got there.... !!! 

sadly i'm not just around the corner, so that was not quite a option for me :-( 

my machine is quite now on the way to Dave S. for testing and refurbishment... 

i hope to have also a nice story to tell when it arrives at me... 

still waiting 
Daniel 

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: dave linenberg <dlinenbe@home.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 12:28:07 -0500

>Hello All,
>
>This is a recount of my adventure in buying a Lisp Machine...
>
>I too had heard about the legendary Lisp Machines, and decided I wanted
>one when I saw it on E-Bay.   I thought I could get it cheaply, but to
>no avail.
>
>(My background is Mechanical / Aerospace engineering, but I have been a
>programmer on the trading floor of a bank for the past 6 years.  I
>discovered Lisp a year and a half ago, and have been using CMUCL and
>the  Franz trial version for Linux.)
>
>I was outbid by Daniel (cyberdine), (I wish you the best of luck, Daniel
>- let me know how it goes!! ) - so I ended up driving down to Dave
>Schmidt's place in Burke, Virginia, to buy one directly from him, 3 days
>ago.
>
>I spent the day building an XL1200 with him,  (we started at 9 in the
>morning and ended up at about 9:30 at night!!!).  This was a great
>experience -  seeing his shop, testing memory chips, and selecting only
>good processor boards and input output boards so that no tests failed.
>Between pizza and beer and his good hospitality, we talked Lisp and Lisp
>Machines.  For example, I was shown each of the system boards, how to
>determine the proper voltage readings across certain resistors, how to
>insert the boards, and problems with parts most likely to induce
>errors.  The machine and the monitor can be taken apart and serviced,
>unlike today's disposable computers.
>
>For 3500$ with a 90 day working guarantee, and ALL software on
>CD-ROM (genera 8.3, CLIM 2.1, all layered products, and lots more), a
>CD-rom, a scsi disk, an esdi disk (for redundancy and paging), a
>monitor, keyboard, mouse,  I think this is the way to go.  ( The parts
>all look spanking brand new, and are put through a battery of tests, so
>you can be assured you will have some reliability as well as a good
>clear monitor ).   The price may seem expensive, but after spending the
>day with Dave, I think that even a very cheaply acquired machine might
>take a bit of money (possibly $700-$1000 minimum) to get it into good
>working order.
>
>Additionally, I think just hanging out with Dave, learning about the
>internals of the machines,  and being in a room full of maybe 20-30 or
>more symbolic's machines, and loads of spare parts,  for a day was well
>worth it.
>
>The only issue with the machine is that it comes with no hard copy
>manuals (though all the documentation is viewable on line), as Dave has
>only a couple of sets of manuals for his own use.   I did manage to get
>the Genera Workbook, and Genera concepts manual, as well as a bunch of
>promotional Symbolics brochures from Dave.  I hope to get some manuals
>soon.
>
>Additionally, the machines are heavy, and fragile(from a shipping point
>of view) .  You DONT want to drop this 100 pound baby, for fear of
>damaging the system boards.  I was lucky enough  to be a 4 hour drive
>from Dave's workshop, so I drove the machine back home.  There are
>shippers who specialize in fragile things like antiques, so maybe this
>is how I would ship it, if I had to.
>
>Anyway, I have started playing with my XL1200, and am having a lot of
>fun.
>
>Dave Linenberg
>dlinenbe@home.com
>
>