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Aucbvax.4642 fa.editor-p utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!editor-people Sat Oct 24 01:20:21 1981 apparently random Alto snipe >From RYLAND@SRI-KL Sat Oct 24 00:44:56 1981 I just sent an apparently snide message to Editor-People about the Altos and their outdatedness; I realized that this might sound off-hand or snooty, so let me clarify what I meant, and possibly start a set of flames.

The Alto, without a doubt, was an interesting toy which gave many bright people a teething device for their ideas about human engineering, etc. However, I have a heretical theory that the Alto did more to *slow down* Xerox in their mad rush for the information systems of the future than it did to help them. Why? Because it's far too small of a system to be anything more than a toy, in the sense of providing enough power to support a very good programming environment.

For example, because the Alto was so successful as a workstation within Xerox for the past few years, everyone was saddled with them; this included even the SDD folks, who were chartered to pull together the PARC tinkerings into some sort of reality (the Star and its satellites). To build even a medium-sized system in Mesa would require hours and hours of sitting at an Alto (well, doing other things), and thus, for things like BravoX (SDD folks out there, please correct me if I'm wrong), building new systems would take far longer than if some sort of time-sharing system had been around to do the crunching needed. Only recently did the SDD folks get Dolphins, and even these were no huge step forward. The Dorado is confined mostly to PARC and certainly is too expensive and flakey to replace all the Altos within the Xerox companies.

In my opinion, the only workstation worth even considering at this point is the Lisp Machine, as purveyed by Symbolics and LMI. Even the current generation beasts are rather underpowered for what they're trying to do; this is supposedly being solved by the next generation of machines (the only one in the works, as far as the public knows, is the Symbolics 3600).

Why do I make this extravagant claim, given all the incredibly wonderful workstations around, such as the Apollo, the PERQ, the Wicat, the SUN? The reason is software (isn't it always), even ignoring the pitiful hardware being touted these days as the latest, greatest thing since sliced bread. The Lisp Machine comes with dozens of man years of software investment, and those are years invested in what is by far the most synergistic environment you could hope for, given the state of technology. I would make the claim that nothing else comes within 5% of matching that environment, though I have no way of proving that claim. A good indicator might be a simple anecdote about IJCAI '81: when the Three Rivers folks actually sat down with a Lisp Machine (in a nearby booth), they were astounded (I shouldn't put feelings in their hearts, and this was reported by a Lisp Machine type, but I can certainly understand any astonishment, having seen the PERQs and having worked with Lisp Machines!)

Admittedly, other people have gone long ways towards building excellent environments (the Cedar project at PARC, and the LRG people at PARC with their various Smalltalk systems); however, it'll be years, if ever, before the world gets the benefit of the first, and Smalltalk is a fairly impressive system, but still has some questions about viability in "the real world" (for example, Smalltalk 80/81/82 still lacks multiple inheritance).

I guess what triggered this whole flame was the sight of the pitiful systems being proposed by the real world as useful working environments. The Xerox, IBM, HP and DEC new "personal systems" are abject horrors (CP/M, my foot). PERQs are just beginning to get simple operating systems with real file system support. Every 68000 incarnation in the world has its Unix lookalike, or a XENIX hovering in the wings. I make the bold claim that NONE OF THEM has anything interesting to offer other than, perhaps, a large screen.

End of flame. -------

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