LispOS directly on hardware or on Unix kernel?

[Chris Hanson]

At 3:13 PM -0500 4/29/97, Martin Cracauer wrote:
>The CPU interface and hardware drivers alone are reason enough. If you
>don't like Unix sematics, you probably don't want to tangle with i386
>and Adaptec 2940, not to speak of junk like Atapi CDROMs.
>
>The same applies for Video card drivers. I see no other change to get
>these than to run the X11 server of XFree86.

Wouldn't it be possible to -- on the PC implementation of a Lisp OS, or
indeed on any implementation for which Linux already exists -- define some
sort of driver compatibility layer?  That way, one could use the XFree86
video drivers and Linux hardware drivers without having to have the whole
Unix bag o' crap in there.

I guess you can put me in the camp that wants a new Lisp Machine.  I'd even
buy one of those el-cheapo PCs at Damark to run it and do what hacking time
permits on it.  But just another Lisp environment, this time running on
Linux, won't hold my interest.  If I want a Lisp environment that uses the
platform's window system and system services, why shouldn't I just run
Macintosh Common Lisp?