Why LispOS?

[Mike McDonald]

>To: lispos@math.gatech.edu
>Subject: Why LispOS?
>Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 14:58:54 -0800
>From: Fred Gilham <gilham@csl.sri.com>


>Perhaps this has been discussed before, but I'm curious about why
>people want LispOS.  What do we expect it to do for us that just
>running some lisp system on unix won't?

  Well, I think people have gotten carried away with the OS
part. There's a belief that memory management and scheduler HAVE to be
written in Lisp for a "LispOS". Sure, given time and EXPERIENCE,
that'd be nice. But I think a whole lot can be down running on top of
an existing OS, be it some Unix derivitive or even some version of
WinDoze. Or all of the above! From the user's environment point of
view, it should NOT matter what the underlying OS is. Abstract it and
wrap into oblivion!

>I'd love to be able to slip a CD in my Intel box and an hour later
>have a Symbolics look-alike.  But I can get along with what I have.
>Is there anyone on this list who is just foaming at the mouth :-) to
>create the Symbolics look-alike?
>
>-Fred Gilham   gilham@csl.sri.com
>

  That's what some of us old farts are interested in. Unfortunately,
very few on this list have ever seen a Symbolics let alone used
one. So most people don't understand when we reminisce about the
glories of Genera!

  Mike McDonald
  mikemac@mikemac.com