@screwlisp

You can pick up the document 'Signalling and Handling Conditions' from this index page:

http://nhplace.com/kent/ZL/

It was longer than I thought it would be, but I think you'll find it interesting to see what the Zetalisp condition system (which inspired the Common Lisp condition system) looked like.

In spirit, it was much the same. The biggest differences are:

* The CL system has 'active' restarts, where the ZL system had a passive thing where you returned a value to the case context and hoped that it would do the thing you wanted. It felt quite a bit more error-prone (if you'll pardon the reuse of 'error' here, maybe I should say 'mistake-prone').

* The ZL condition system offers a lot of really low-level stuff that did not seem proper for CL.

* The set of operations offered in ZL was richer, but also a lot more complicated, I thought, and I worried people would not really see what it was trying to do.

* Obviously, the ZL system was based on Flavors, not CLOS, and made reference to a lot of LispM-specific packages.

* The document was published in January, 1983 and identifies itself as part of Symbolics Release 4.0.

There are other differences as well.

#Zetalisp #LispMachine #LispMachines #Symbolics #LispM
#ConditionHandling #ConditionSystem #ErrorSystem #ErrorHandling #CommonLisp #CL #Flavors #CLOS #History #ComputerHistory
#InternetArchive #Bitsavers

Wise, sobering words 😞:

“The Lost Cause Of The Lisp Machines”, Tim Bradshaw (https://www.tfeb.org/fragments/2025/11/18/the-lost-cause-of-the-lisp-machines/).

Via HN: https://www.tfeb.org/fragments/2025/11/18/the-lost-cause-of-the-lisp-machines/

On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/rifpe8/lost_cause_lisp_machines

#Lisp #LispMachines #Symbolics #Nostalgia #Programming #IDE #Hardware

The lost cause of the Lisp machines

https://www.tfeb.org/fragments/2025/11/18/the-lost-cause-of-the-lisp-machines/

#HackerNews #LispMachines #LostCause #Technology #History #Programming

Source: https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2024/10/refurb-weekend-symbolics-macivory-lisp.html

#Symbolics #LispMachine #LispMachines #Lisp #AI #AIWinter #ArtificialIntelligence #ComputingHistory #ComputerHistory #History

"The mix-in revolution: How an ice cream innovator in Somerville influenced Lisp pioneers at the MIT AI Lab­—and made a lasting mark on programming."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111238/the-mix-in-revolution/

#MIT #Lisp #LispMachine #LispMachines #OOP #ObjectOrientedProgramming #Flavors #Symbolics #ComputingHistory #ComputerHistory