Re: lisp machines vs. lisp on other boxes

["David L. Andre" <DLA@diamond.s4cc.symbolics.com>]

    Date: 22 May 87 13:37:38 PDT (Fri)
    From: spar!malcolm@decwrl.DEC.COM

	    From: Richard Billington <Buff@cis.upenn.edu>
	    Subject: lisp machines vs. lisp on other boxes
	    To: slug@r20.utexas.edu

	    [Lots of comments about Lisp Environments......]

	    Similarly, I'm also amused by people saying that, for example, a SUN
	    running Lucid is better matched to a beginner. 

    On the other hand it is not possible for a beginner on a conventional machine
    (nonlispm) to get dumped into the cold load stream.

I beg your pardon.  In my previous life I used Suns and often enough got
thrown into something which, although it might not have been a "cold
load stream" nominally, it was certainly equivalent to my definition of
it.  I guess that's more user-friendly because you have a unix shell, no
chance of resurrecting the windows you lost, and the system doesn't
inform you of all the things which are amiss.

Whenever I hear complaints about "being thrown into the debugger" or
"being thrown into the cold-load stream", I like to point out some
alternatives:
  1.  Crash the machine (preferrably with no message).
  2.  Automatically reboot the machine.
  3.  Return to a normal prompt with no indication that anything was wrong.
  4.  Print "core dumped".
  5.  Print "%SYSTEM-F-ILLOP, attempt to take the CAR of SYSTEM-INTERNALS::FROBOZZ".
      followed by the octal contents of all stack locations.

Of course, there's no argument that Symbolics (and every computer
manufacturer) should try to minimize the occurances of last-chance
debugging.  But it happens to the best of us.

    And finally, just so this note isn't content free.......does anybody have
    information on Symbolics new CPU chip?  This weeks EE Times mentions a 
    Symbolics 40 bit chip that "contains a complete Common Lisp" and runs
    five times faster than current Symbolics machines.  They also mention that
    the chip might be available as a "PC add-on board."

There is a press release available from Symbolics -- talk to your
Sales Representative.