Re: time to bring back the Lisp machines?

Interesting. A lot of your hardware seems
optimised for fast transfer/read/graphics rates.
Your clock speed is presumably pretty much
where things were in 2003.

Did you buy your new machine as a server?
It seems to be configured that way.

A question to my mind would be to what degree
this configuration would pay off in an ordinary
Lisp application where these features might
be less at a premium.

Do you have Qi on your machine? There is an
interesting benchmark you could try which might
answer this.

Would an LM have a market? Well, here is
a quote from an old Symbolics release.
http://home.hakuhale.net/rbc/symbolics/announcements/19870519-ivory.txt

"Three main groups have expressed keen interest," said Noftsker. "The
first is Department of Defense contractors who want to use Ivory as an
embedded delivery platform for applications developed on Symbolics
systems."

The second group is commercial vendors who want to
add a Symbolic co-processor to their product offering.
And the third is system integrators in various vertical
markets who want to embed their next-generation products
within an Ivory-based Symbolics product."

In addition to traditional AI research and development,
Ivory will make possible a wider range of application
products in such industries as financial, medical,
chemical and aerospace. Ivory will also allow developers
to solve larger, more complex AI problems than have
previously been possible."

I think those markets are still there. The practicality
must hinge on whether a modern LM can deliver
the performace. I think the crucial figure is an order
of magnitude. If an LM can deliver 10X the performance
of a top end PC then its a paying proposition provided
the price is right.

I think this was probably the sort of ratio that Symbolics
could boast about in 1987 when they released the Ivory
chip. As my experiments in 1990 showed, they could
not maintain their margin. Nowdays they would have a
better chance.

Mark

.