Re: I symbolics still selling machines? does anyone use the lisp genera os?

In article <1185747011.506684.92340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Scott Burson <FSet.SLB@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jul 29, 2:54 pm, gavino <gavcom...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

has anyone ever used a lisp machine as an e commerce server? (aka not
just a workstation)

I don't think there has been any new Lisp Machine hardware in over 10
years. Meanwhile, mainstream computers have increased in speed by a
couple of orders of magnitude.


One story I've heard is that back in the 1980s, American Express
developed an expert system (which might still be in use) for approving
credit card transactions. As I understand, AmEx doesn't assign a
specific credit limit to an account; rather, they approve transactions
on a case-by-case basis depending on various factors such as the
account's existing balance, payment history, size of the requested
transaction, and sizes of past transactions. (So e.g. if you have a
history of making large purchases and paying them off promptly,
they'll keep allowing you to do that.)

Anyway, I recall being told that somewhere AmEx had a bank of
Symbolics machines running this expert system, making these
transaction approval decisions in real time. That may not be exactly
what you have in mind, but I think it demonstrates that these machines
were perfectly capable of providing E-commerce services.

AmEx was also a Thinking Machines customer, and I think much of the data
mining in that expert system was done on the Connection Machine, not the
Lisp Machine. But the Lispm was the front-end controlling the CM, IIRC.

--
Barry Margolin, barmar@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Arlington, MA
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