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ux266478 2 days ago [-]
If you find PARC interesting, and especially if you're interested in symbolic computation, I can highly recommend digging as deep as you can possibly stomach into the FGCS:
As a public research initiative, pretty much everything was published when the initiative was completed. PIMs are absolute engineering marvels. The ICOT had command of an army of the absolute best talent in the entire country, and unified them towards a goal of pure exploratory research with no market pressure, with all the excesses of 1980s Japan.
watersb 6 hours ago [-]
FGCS: the Fifth-Generation Computing System
I was really excited about this initiative at the time, just starting my computer science undergrad degree.
Hardware that ran Prolog as close to bare metal as possible.
Thanks for the reminder. 40 years ago.
eggy 9 hours ago [-]
A great tech book on symbolic computers in general and Lisp machines, is Peter Kogge's 1991, "The Architecture of Symbolic Computers". I believe new efforts by people like Yann LeCun will counter the "LLMs or bust" monoculture along with SOC/ASICs, in-memory compute, neuromorphic chips, dataflow, optical/analog hybrids , etc. that will bring a healthy correction or alternatives to the Von Neumann architecture.
alexpotato 10 hours ago [-]
Rory Sutherland [0] has a great quote:
"If you really want to great phenomenal items here is the plan:
- enter a market
- become a monopoly
- use those monopoly profits to fund R&D/building items of incredible quality"
A recent example of that is Apple TV. Apple makes so much money that they can fund the creation of incredibly high quality shows with basically minimal advertising.
Unless mandated, why would the people controlling a corporation (and its budget) do that? While the corp has money in the bank, it's kinda their money, in the sense that they decide what to spend it on. If distributed back to the shareholders, the money evaporates from their perspective, so there's not much incentive to do it unless it's required, or unless they will benefit by it (e.g., they have a lot of stock themselves and would like the dividend).
matheusmoreira 6 hours ago [-]
Corporations that have gone public are essentially lost causes. CEOs are incentivized to maximize shareholder profits at all costs, and it's much easier and cheaper to enshittify than to research and develop.
I suppose it's possible for privately owned corporations to be awesome. If the guy in charge cares, awesome things will happen. Valve is the only concrete example that comes to mind.
sph 1 hours ago [-]
In other words:
- enter a market
- become a monopoly
- use those monopoly profits to maintain your monopoly
A playbook that's very much alive in all big tech companies, from Apple to Oracle.
anonzzzies 3 hours ago [-]
You can have the residential programming feel with SBCL; it's a pleasure.
virajk_31 3 hours ago [-]
"Residential programming" isn't it similar to interepreter!! Difference I can think of is it can completely rewrite something instead of updating or extending it. ex. rewrite the existing function instead of re-defining it.
pamoroso 2 hours ago [-]
The Interlisp manual defines residential programming like this:
«The "residential" style, where you stay inside the environment throughout the development, is essential for these tools to operate.»
https://www.airc.aist.go.jp/aitec-icot/ICOT/HomePage.html
As a public research initiative, pretty much everything was published when the initiative was completed. PIMs are absolute engineering marvels. The ICOT had command of an army of the absolute best talent in the entire country, and unified them towards a goal of pure exploratory research with no market pressure, with all the excesses of 1980s Japan.
I was really excited about this initiative at the time, just starting my computer science undergrad degree.
Hardware that ran Prolog as close to bare metal as possible.
Thanks for the reminder. 40 years ago.
"If you really want to great phenomenal items here is the plan:
- enter a market
- become a monopoly
- use those monopoly profits to fund R&D/building items of incredible quality"
A recent example of that is Apple TV. Apple makes so much money that they can fund the creation of incredibly high quality shows with basically minimal advertising.
0 - https://www.tiktok.com/@rorysutherlandclips/video/7314765561...
But why would a corporation do that when it could simply distribute those profits to shareholders?
I suppose it's possible for privately owned corporations to be awesome. If the guy in charge cares, awesome things will happen. Valve is the only concrete example that comes to mind.
- enter a market
- become a monopoly
- use those monopoly profits to maintain your monopoly
A playbook that's very much alive in all big tech companies, from Apple to Oracle.
«The "residential" style, where you stay inside the environment throughout the development, is essential for these tools to operate.»
https://interlisp.org/documentation/IRM.pdf#page=17
Wonderful for Larry et.,al. to keep it going as open source.