The collected works of Oskar45 - Page 7

And why did you exclude not-north-European-Nekochaners? We are doing fine, as well:-)

True, but reading Minix's source should still teach you one thing or the other...

Ah - the Indigo. Once upon a time it was hailed the "RISC PC of the 90's". 20 years ago, when I bought my first SGI box at list-price (!), it was an R3000. No-one ever claimed that their machines were actually cheap - by today's standard, I'd to shell out about €20000. Sigh, I'm well aware that I should forever be condemned to Ring 2 for having been so stupid, but back then I just wanted have an Indigo. Ok, I beefed it up to R4400, and it run for ten years before it died a peaceful death. After that, I got myself a purple I2 which still purrs away happily today...but occasionally I still long for my old Indigo nevertheless...

Might be true. Nevertheless, I find all these belittling comments about sucking iApps simply ridiculous [most cost next to nothing, although all of them needed some work anyhow]. Why don't you just sit down and develop that one killer app you're after yourself? In a week or so, customers will be satisfied and you will get rich overnight...

Not sure whether we still have any active female posters [who would not confess to their real age anyway ]. But how about you brave guys

Almost true. Back then I'd asked for the average age of our members [without poll], and we had a very lively discussion indeed [and no, I was not bored...although...]. In the meantime, we got quite a few new members and, therefore, the age-structure might have changed considerably...So this poll.

BTW, back then you didn't reveal your own age - unless you're an ageless yogi maybe you can classify yourself now

Anyone on here ever had/worked on one? Besides SGI's, it once upon a time was my dream box. But although in comparison the former were price-wise a bargain, I never could afford the latter. And just having a copy of the "Lisp Machine Manual" is not really an adequate substitute

Indeed, I'd Texas Instruments PC-Scheme [conforming to the Revised3 Report] running on my IBM PS-Half. In fact, I still (!) have the very same version on my HP 200LX - for sure, not a speed demon, but probably the most portable device capable of running Lisp-like stuff ever

CLISP [not to be confused with CLIPS] is a good Common Lisp implementation which can be compiled under Irix/MipsPro C without problems. Of course, it's no Lisp Machine where everything from the operating system to the UI is written in (Zeta)Lisp. Still, it's worth the effort.

... good luck, Frankie Boy

...even complete with *three* different date formats

Within the context of the present thread, is this to be construed as flaming?

While I don't consider myself a crackpot, I'd rather dream of perusing a Symbolics or running Lisp on my SGI boxes than struggle, e.g., with a C-machine

Had no problem with your calling Lisp Machine fans "dreamers" - after all, once upon a time I'd dreamed myself of owning an SGI box. Alas, a couple of their boxes later I sure discovered they were not at all the "dream machines" I'd dreamed about before.

But I raised an eyebrow upon your calling them "crackpots". Am not sure RMS would approve...

@geo: thanks for the link - will check it out [and I might be willing to offer a bottle of Highland Park in lieu of beer]

Sorry for coming back to your old post. Nevertheless, I'd be still interested to learn more about your universally valid criteria for branding people addicted to Lisp Machines as *dreamers/crackpots* (of course, you would need to subsume such minor figures as McCarthy, Gosper, Greenblatt, Stallman, Boyer, Steele, Weintraub...)...Besides, Forth hasn't totally disappeared yet and I don't know what you had in mind with "some other topics"...

Wrong.

LOL.

Possibly some of you are familiar with McCarthy's "91 function" and Takeuchi's function - Gabriel [1985] had used several variants of the latter in checking the performance of Lisp systems.

To be sure, neither of these functions is of any practical importance; yet, both functions are quite instructive and make excellent examples for exploring recursion. So, I'd be interested to know - in terms of performance - how much we have progressed in the last 25+ years. The only rule of this amicable contest is that you do it on an SGI box. Otherwise, use any language you are most familiar with [whether compiled or interpreted]. Just state your timings and environment. However, for better comparison, if you try Takeuchi, call it with (18,12,6) - the result should be 7.

Thanks for trying! Don't know what "tarai" in your experiment is, but I do have a possible explanation why it didn't spit out 7.

Takeuchi's *original* function is:


But here is an example of even big minds erring. When the Computer Science Department at Stanford University obtained the first couple of Xerox Dolphins, John McCarthy and Richard Gabriel wanted to benchmark the machines. John tried to remember the Takeuchi function - but he misremembered it, like this:



This subtle lapse wasn't discovered until much later, but by then [the second version, dubbed TAK in Gabriel's 1985 book] had already become one of the standards for testing LISP systems - so it stuck...

Can you please try again (18,12,6) with the second version?

Curious incidence? Upon (18,12,6), your first trial returned 18, your second 6 - the first and third argument, respectively...

And considering your timespent, you must have boxes working like hell:-)

@geo & vishnu: Bingo, gentlemen But, really, there's no trick involved here. True, the original (recursive) 1978 Takeuchi function t(x,y,z) has "if x <= y then y else ...". However, by the hint I'd already given you above, when John McCarthy wanted to test newly arrived Xerox machines, he remembered the function wrongly and had "if x <=y then z else ..." instead [yes, even giants are not infallible]; this version stuck and Richard Gabriel in his 1985 book, "Performance and Evaluation of Lisp Systems" used it - as TAK - to benchmark 130+ configurations. Indeed, Donald Knuth, in his 1991 paper, "Textbook Examples of Recursion", after discussions of the "91 function" and the original Takeuchi, also elaborates on a class of recursive functions he calls "False Takeuchi Functions", of which McCarthy's/Gabriel's version certainly is a member. And, IIRC, Ilan Vardi, in his 1991 book, "Computational Recreations in Mathematica" discusses the running time of TAK as well.

Anyway, could you please supply some information regarding your SGI box/compiler etc. for comparison? Thanx.

Nope, the then part matters [since it can be considered as a function e(x,y,z), there are infinitely many right answers - although infinitely many will loop forever as well]...

Actually, you are wrong on both numbers...

Assuming you were referring to "1A Overview and Introduction to Lisp", as lectured by Abelson, in the example where he demonstrated the calculation of the square root of 2, you seem to have missed a few steps, starting with (try 1.3333 2). The final result is indeed 1.4142. In fact, the calculator on my iPhone shows that as well

BTW, this course is not about (Common) Lisp, but about Scheme - nevertheless, Abelson & Sussman had most probably written the best book on Lisp-like languages ever ["Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"]. I still remember that almost 30 years ago upon reading it first it kept me up like a mystery novel

While I've the first season on DVD [I really enjoyed it very much], do you think it would be worthwhile to get me the second season as well [after all, the third season started last weekend].

"New age music" nowadays is hopelessly "Old age music". Once upon a time I was very much into it, though. I agree, back then, most of that stuff was only suitable for background noise in warehouses. However, there were some exceptions - Richard Burmer, Steve Roach, Gabrielle Roth, Patrick O'Hearn. And, of course, Constance Demby's "Novus Magnificat" [1986], arguably the greatest New Age piece ever...

Speed-read! Book 5 is already out

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Oh mei - it's €35.00 over here

Might not be of the same high quality - but "I'm a primate, therefore I program [albeit with a higher per hour rate]"

Fresh Air e ?

Can't load it via my iPad,though

Check duckduck.go, "how to deal with drag queens"...

...suppose you are banned but are allowed to take just *five* books with you. Which ones would you choose? My pick:

- Penrose, The road to reality
- Smullyan, Diagonalization and self-reference
- Wentworth Thompson, On growth and form
- Goodheart & Cox, The magic garden explained
- Dante, Divine comedy

Of course, I would not want miss my gyrotwister either...

I agree - "The Name of the Rose" is a terrific book, and the movie was fine as well [Connery and Qualtinger were just outstanding].

Regarding your book list - well, you'd chosen *six* books. Out of courtesy :-):-) I let that pass. After all, the Bible is without question the greatest crime & sex story ever dreamed up [see, e.g., Akerley, "The X-Rated Bible"], and, therefore, will make entertaining reading any time...