14 Dec
2011
14 Dec
'11
2:36 p.m.
From: Josh Dersch
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 9:08 PM
I just wish UNIX man pages were as well written and
as
all-encompassing as the online documentation available on my
Lisp machine. Basically three or four feet worth of the
printed manual set available at a keypress (or mouse click)
or two, thoroughly indexed and cross-referenced, viewable
directly at the command prompt (even while in the middle of
typing a command -- invaluable when you've forgotten how
something works halfway through) from within the editor, or
inside the Document Examiner, with hypertext, formatting,
diagrams, etc... a lovely system and well ahead of its time.
Yes, the Lisp Machines were, like the TOPS-20 operating system,
"a great improvement on [their] successors."
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/