🚀 go-pugleaf

    Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 05:32 EDT
    From: Coquereaux <Robert.Coquereaux@cpt.univ-mrs.fr>

    >    Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:18 EDT
    >    From: Mike McDonald <mikemac@mikemac.com>
    >
    >
    >    >Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 23:47:45 +0200
    >    >To: <reti@wilson.ai.mit.edu>
    >    >From: Rainer Joswig <joswig@lavielle.com>
    >    >Subject: Re: Keyboard weirdness. Anyone familiar with this behavior?
    >
    >    >Sigh!!!! Imagine a MacIvory in a Nubus PowerPC Mac with a
    >    >G3 upgrade card. Better yet a new faster Ivory in a G3 Mac.
    >
    >      Dwelling on the unattainable is only going to depress you. And me!
    >
    >Actually, I've been thinking about doing a MacIvory IV (software only) for
    >the fast PowerBooks.  Would this be something you'd be interested in?  It
    >would probably not have great performance (somewhere between an XL400 and
    >and XL1200, hopefully nearer XL1200 but it will be hard).  The reason is that
    >the 64-bit emulator for the Alpha is already register limited holding more
    >than 32-bit data, so this problem gets much worse on a 32 bit machine.  Also,
    >it will have to do software virtual memory for the 34-bit address space.
    >
    >      Mike McDonald
    >      mikemac@mikemac.com

    Of course, this would be nice ! There are a number of people (like me) who
    have to rely on an almost dead host - like my old Macintosh II (FX) - in
    order to use their Ivory card together with the Genera environment... What
    will  happen when the host finally collapses ?  Extract the Ivory card, put
    it in a nice frame and trash all the programs ?
    
Used Mac II's are still available, and only cost a couple of hundred dollars.
    
    Personally I would be certainly interested in a Symbolics emulator (Open
    Genera)
    running  either on Apple PowerBooks on SPARC.  It may be not have great
    performance, however speed, in my case, is not really an issue (but that is
    me).  Another option would be to have it running on a SPARC. Another nice
    possibility would be to make it compatible with Linux.
    I know a good number of  research centers for theoretical physics or  math
    departments were people
     would be quite happy to use Genera, but non embedded Lisp machine were
    always considered as too expensive in such places.   The present evolution,
    in the majority research centers for maths or physics I know, is to buy
    stations for the department itself,  like Sparcs or HP ( when you are rich
    enough),  or PC's that you use under Linux (when your department is not
    that rich...), and to buy Powerbooks for the individuals (people do travel
    !).  By the way Alpha does not seem to be very common in my world either.
    If somebody is able to  resurrect the idea of Open Genera for Sparcs and/or
    PowerBooks,  there is a very good chance that people in universities or
    research centers  will be interested, provided the prices stay
    reasonable...it was unfortunately never the case, though.
     Moreover I am sure that many oldtimers like me, those who look at their
    old quadra or FX with angst every time they turn it on, would start to
    relax!
    Robert Coquereaux

    Robert Coquereaux
    Groupe "Interactions Fondamentales"
    Centre de Physique Theorique
    Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
    Case 907 - Campus de Luminy
    13288 MARSEILLE Cedex 9 FRANCE

    Tel (33) 4 91 26 95 18
    Fax (33) 4 91 26 95 53

    email: coque@cpt.univ-mrs.fr
    internet:  http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~coque