Looking for LMI LISP Machines

From: Bill von Hagen <wvh_at_gethip.com>
Date: Mon May 8 15:17:08 2000

I see your point, though I think that the call becomes substantially
tougher in microcoded machines that have no explicit "%processor" mapping.
However, I'm sure that we'll all agree that we don't need to squander
additional bandwidth here to semantics!

  Bill

At 08:37 PM 5/8/00 +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
> >
> > ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps a PERQ was not a LISP machine if hardware support for LISP and
> > > > supporting services such as garbage collection is your criteria, but a
> > >
> > > Yes, I guess that is how I define a LISP machine. In much the same way,
> > > I'd not call a Jupiter Ace (UK home micro, Z80 based, Forth in ROM) a
> > > 'forth machine'.
> >
> >
> > Hi
> > This is a hard call, I would call the Jupiter Ace a
> > Forth machine. It did have a Z80 heart but the interface
> > was the Forth interpreter. Even things like the NC4000
> > or RTX2000 that were considered a Forth engines had an
> > underlying assembly language that was easily formed into Forth.
>
>Yes, that's the point. The Z80 is not really optimised to run Forth
>(IMHO, the 6809 does better for this but anyway...). So while the Jupiter
>Ace is a machine that runs forth, where the user interface is forth, etc,
>it's not a 'forth machine'. I reserve that title for machines where there
>is hardware support for features of the forth language (like 2 stacks,
>threading, etc).
>
>The problem is that if you're not careful, any computer could be called a
><foo> machine where <foo> is any language or operating environment that
>you choose. And that rather makes '<foo> machine> meaningless.
>
>
> > The Jupiter Ace didn't have any specific operations
> > or hardware to support Forth, other than the ROM. I guess,
> > if one uses this as a drawing line, it makes some sense.
> > I wonder how one could define the Canon Cat? Although,
> > it had Forth in ROM, it was an application machine.
> > Wouldn't one call it an application machine, even though
> > it have an underlying processor with Forth overlayed
> > on that and the application on top of that?
>
>No. I'd call it a %processor based machine. That happens to run software
>written in forth.
>
>-tony
Received on Mon May 08 2000 - 15:17:08 BST