[LMH]FPGA / microcode

[Eric Blossom]

On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 03:46:45PM -0500, Mike McDonald wrote:
> 
> >To: Robert Swindells <rjs@fdy2.demon.co.uk>
> >Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 12:35:34 -0800
> >From: Eric Blossom
> >
> >Not a bad idea, but it leaves us in the same mess we're in now: 
> >No free software / open source lisp machine.
> >
> >I suggest that we learn from the examples of the past, but start new,
> >with free software all the way to the bottom.  We've got good free
> >compilers already.  There's McCLIM for the display.  There are a
> >couple of emacs-ish editors in CL.  We may not actually be that far
> >away.
> 
>   Oh no! Not the dreaded "lets write a LispOS from scratch" thread
> again! :-)
> 
>   The LispM environment is the result of a lot of very smart people
> putting in a lot of years work on it. 

Agreed.  

> It's not something that is easily duplicated.

Particulary if we never start ;-)

However, let's get real.  The existing LispM environments are
effectively dead.  The sources for them are encumbered by various
companies, some of which are pretty close to zombies, but which still
have stockholders to answer to.  Unless the copyright holders release
the source we're stuck.  Yes, I know the source is around, but we'll
never really get this thing off the ground if there isn't good, clear
title to the code.

The other thing to remember is that those smart people wrote a lot of
papers.  It's a lot easier to write code when you already know where
you're trying to get to.

I'm not proposing "let's write a LispOS from scratch", I'm asking
"What was it about the lisp machines that made them great?"
extrapolate fifteen or twenty years, now how can we get there, only
this time with free software?

Maybe this is the dreaded "lets write a LispOS from scratch" thread...

Eric