17 Dec
1998
17 Dec
'98
10:32 a.m.
The first kit was called SIMON (in honor of Simple
Simon). I don't have
It is a very nice machine, though I wouldn't call it a computer in the
strict sense. Berkeley wrote some books (and there may have been some
Scientific American articles) too. Of course, I
could be underestimating the power of Berkeley's machines.
I assume so. Otherwise you'll have to define "computer" for me. Berkeley also
wrote a nice book about LISP (which may be the only reason why
you can run PDP-1 LISP on your PDP-1 emulator -- the source is published in
the book and it would be VERY hard to find otherwise). But I digress.
Yes, he was a mathematician, so "symbolic programming" was an interesting
paradigm to him. But PDP-1 LISP is available via FTP from Supnik's
archive. Speaking of programming paradigms, one of the reasons
I've always been so
found of the E&S PS-300 was that it used a dataflow language. I found
that a very compelling and completely different way to program. What a
guy that Sutherland was, eh?
Yeah, he doesn't get much press. (Also, when your work exists to make money
for your company, you're wise not to say too much about it.) I really want
Sketchpad or a clone on MY machine. I don't know anything about dataflow
languages.
-- Derek