The feel of a LispM/List of running machines

[Alaric B. Williams]

>   File systems still fill a needed niche. Even if we had a persistant
> object store, we'd still need file system support for MSDOS floppies
> and ISO9660 CDs, not to mention getting stuff off other machines on
> the net.

Not necess. If there is a portable mechanism available for the existence
of objects to be /faked/, we can create a filer driver that, whenever
a device is "mounted" to it, creates virtual objects corresponding
to the things on that device. 

Rather than having an HTTP fetching library, the fetcher creates the
illusion of an object for each web page out there by patching a
name space system somwhere, depending on how we do it. If we have
a persistent directory hierachy, it could own a mountpoint "http:/",
so we write:

(get-object "http://www.abwillms.demon.co.uk/alaric/")

get-object being the namespace resolving function, returning the
object in question. The HTTP hook would return a handle it had associated
with that URL, and behaviour mirroring our concept of a document 
object, perhaps.
 
>   Nope. That's my plan. Start with Unix as developement basis so we
> can make a fast start and then slowly ween the PC LispM off of it as
> new and better pieces are ready.

Yeah, sounds good to me.
 
>   I've got a 3640 loaded with memory, color, FPU at my house in the
> south SF Bay area. I can arrange demos too. (I guess I'd beter crank
> her up and make sure something hasn't died. The color is so so. Could
> be cables or the color card. It has a yellow grid overlaid on the
> screen. If anyone knows what the problem is, I'd love to hear.)

I don't suppose there are any in the UK...
 
>   Mike McDonald

ABW
--
Alaric B. Williams (alaric@abwillms.demon.co.uk)

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