wilkes@gatech.UUCP (05/23/83)
As announced in the June 6 issue of "Infoworld," Xerox is
now offering licenses for Smalltalk-80. These licenses will
be made available to universities for $400 and to commercial
concerns to the tune of $20,000. The licensee will be entitled
to implement the virtual machine as described in the book
(Goldberg and Robson, "Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its
Implementation") and thus be able to use the tape of the standard
system...
Some of us at Georgia Tech are thinking about implementing the
virtual machine on a VAX 11/780 in Pascal and then porting the
Pascal code to a network of (Three Rivers) Perqs (which have a
p-code-like microcode interpreter for Pascal). We would appreciate
any information about other planned implementations in Pascal before
starting this project.
Speaking of "The Book," the same "Infoworld" article noted that
the first printing had sold out, and that a second printing is
in the works. I noticed a couple of copies at the local
B. Dalton's bookstore affiliate, however. (Smalltalk implementation
for the masses?) Also, a representative of Addison-Wesley at
the Spring COMDEX told me that we can expect the next three
books towards the middle of the summer:
"Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment" (A-W #11372-4),
"Smalltalk-80: Creating a User Interface and Graphical Applications"
(A-W #11370-8), and "Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice"
(A-W #11669-3).
-- Tom Wilkes
wilkes.gatech@UDel-Relay (ARPANet)
wilkes@gatech (CSNet)
...!allegra!gatech!wilkes (UUCP/mail)
...!decvax!duke!mcnc!msdc!gatech!wilkes (UUCP/mail/news)ravi@hcr.UUCP (Ravi Pandya) (06/03/83)
Subject: Smalltalk-80 Licenses Newsgroups: net.lang.st80,general Smalltalk-80 licenses are now available. I understand that they cost $400 for universities and $20,000 for companies (I don't know about distribution, royalties, etc.) If you are interested, write to: Manager of Licensing Xerox Corporation P.O. Box 1600 Stamford, Conn. 06904 U.S.A. Just for interest's sake, is anyone out there thinking of doing an implementation? Ravi Pandya ..!decvax!hcr!hcrvax!ravi Mike Rutenberg ..!decvax!utzoo!utcsrgv!qucis!mdr
msc@qubix.UUCP (06/04/83)
I went to a talk by David Robson during which he touched on the topic of the other books in the Smalltalk series. The second book "Creating a User Interface and ..." has not even been started so it will certainly NOT be out any time soon. The other books are likely to appear sometime towards the end of this year. Mark
hal@cornell.UUCP (06/04/83)
A specific question: Is anyone implementing Smalltalk-80 for the
Sun? We would like to get some experience with Smalltalk here at
Cornell, and it would be nice if we didn't have to implement it
ourselves. Smalltalk for the Sun seems like such an obvious idea
that I can't imagine that we're the first ones to think of it.
Hal Perkins
Cornell Comp Sci
uucp: {decvax|vax135|...}!cornell!hal
arpa: hal@cornellpavel@cornell.UUCP (06/07/83)
I should really clear up some misconceptions that are running rampant on this group. Firstly, and most importantly, qubix!msc must have either spoken to Dave Robson quite a long while ago or gravely misunderstood him. The second book in the series is NOT "Creating a User Interface...", it is "Smalltalk 80: Bits of History, Words of Advice", edited by Glenn Krasner. This is primarily a book describing some of the implementation experiences of the Software Concepts Group here at PARC. The book on the User interface, by Adele Goldberg, will be the third book in the series. Glenn's book is in the home stretch of production, he having received some pages to look over for final approval. The current release date, which looks firm, is July 15. As for Adele's book describing the User Interface of the ST80 system, not only has it been started, but fairly complete drafts have existed around here for several months. In fact, I just finished learning the system by proofing the next-to-last draft (the "get your comments in now or forever hold your peace" draft). She is currently working on putting the final touches on the hundreds of illustrations and is beginning work on the design of the chapter-beginning art work. She is just a few steps behind Glenn as far as getting pages to look at goes. The interface book will really only be useful to those people who have a running ST80 system. Almost the entire book is structured around examples of everything. However, they may be enough pictures (there are a LOT of them) to understand it. One will certainly be able to get a certain feel for the general philosophy of the interface design. As for Hal Perkins' query about ST80 on a SUN, all I'm allowed to say is that an implementation exists here on a bare SUN (no UNIX) which is currently lacking only a virtual memory and some details. To answer Hal's question, yes, other people have thought of it. In general, I hereby offer my services as an information outlet from the Smalltalk Group. I am here as a summer student and will also be here most of 1984. I'll warn you ahead of time, however, that questions about proprietary info won't be answered. Mail can be sent to me most easily and consistently at my Cornell mailbox, not here at PARC, as my actual location is somewhat dynamic. Pavel Curtis ...!decvax!cornell!pavel Pavel@Cornell CRNLCS%pavel (BitNet)
jf@hplabs.UUCP (Joe Falcone) (06/08/83)
I have noticed that most (if not all) of the discussion of Smalltalk in this
newsgroup has been by people who have (at best) played with Smalltalk.
Some of the mis-information has been quite amusing at time, including
that from "pavel" who apparently has some association with PARC.
I was one of the members of the HP Smalltalk project (part of the Xerox
test distribution program). Yes, campers, HP, DEC, Apple, and Tektronix
all have licenses for Smalltalk. Did we pay for them? Yes and No.
We didn't pay money, but we did pay engineering time to help debug the
distribution. (I doubt whether any of these companies would have actually
PAID real money for licenses - it was far easier to justify having
engineers spend a year fiddling with it).
I have "Smalltalk: The Language and Its Implementation" on my bookshelf.
Nice reading.
We have gone through the galley phase (including some
wild things that some Xerox text editor did to some
of the papers) on "Smalltalk 80: Bits of History, Words of Advice".
It is likely that this book will be paperback for those who are budget
conscious. It is a collection of articles from the 4 test sites,
plus University of Washington (courtesy Al Borning), UCB, and Xerox.
Glenn Krasner managed the feat of coordinating a book whose authors
were sprinkled across the country. He deserves much praise.
I have a late, but now old draft of "Smalltalk 80: The Interactive
Programming Environment" by Adele Goldberg. I really don't know
what has happened to this book. My draft is dated August 1982 and
looks for all the world to be camera-ready. I'll be very surprised
if this book is delayed much longer.
My impression is that the fourth book, "Smalltalk 80: Creating a
User Interface and Graphical Applications" has always been on the
bottom of everyone's list at PARC. Last I heard, which was a few
months ago, it had not been started, but that may have changed.
However, given the fact that the first book was started back
in early 1980, it may be another year before we see this book.
Incidentally, for those of you contemplating publishing a collection
of technical works, Glenn's original schedule for "Bits of History" was:
June 15, 1982 First drafts
July 15, 1982 Peer review complete (authors review one anothers papers)
August 15, 1982 Drafts consolidated at PARC
September 15, 1982 Book is sent to publishers. Pre-publication copies
ready in a month, real copies hit shelves in six.
We probably slipped 3 to 6 months - they are predicting summer or
fall for the "Bits of History" book.
As for the implementations out there, here are my impressions.
I have had the good fortune to see all of the implementations,
except for the SUN version. As part of the "Bits of History" book,
there will be a table of Benchmarks for each implementation.
The fastest one is on the Xerox Dorado. What else is new?
The big surprise was for second place.
The second fastest is neither the Dolphin nor the VAX implementations,
but a surprisingly clever job done by Tektronix on the 68000.
Now, as previously mentioned on the net, Peter Deutsch put Smalltalk
on a SUN-type workstation. However, he has released no performance figures.
The Tektronix implementation is quite useable, the UCB, DEC, and HP
implementations are useable if you kick everyone else off the VAX
(Smalltalk is for personal computers, but I don't know whether you can call
a single-user VAX a personal computer).
The Apple 68000 implementation is slower than the VAX versions, but
is eminently more useable since only $10K worth of hardware is necessary
and that hardware is commercially available as the Lisa, including mouse.
For those of you who are interested in the practical chore of
implementing a sophisticated system like Smalltalk, I would highly
recommend "Bits of History" (or whatever they decide to call it).
All four companies contributed interesting articles, each discussing
different solutions to the same Smalltalk performance problems.
Of course, take my recommendation with a grain of salt since I am
one of the contributors and hence have a financial interest.
Hope I have cleared the air for a while,
Joe Falcone
hplabs!jfpavel@cornell.UUCP (06/10/83)
Let me clear up the now cleared air by adding some corrections and clarifications to Joe Falcone's message: The second book, "Bits of History, Words of Advice" will be delivered to your favorite bookstore as a trade paperback on August 1, 1983. The third book, "The Interactive Programming Environment", is supposed to get to stores in November, but definitely this year. It may even make it on time... The statement from Joe Falcone that he has a copy of a draft of this is a little misleading; his copy is one complete rewrite back. It is fairly complete, in that it describes the system for which he has a license, but his system is also out of date, being the so-called version1. The system that you can get a license for now is being called version 2. This system includes some very substantial extentions and modifications over version 1, including support for multiple inheritance, multiple compilers, a complete reworking of the classes supporting the standard system views, added functionality in many of those views, a spelling correction facility for fixing many syntax errors, and the addition of several new utilities, including a system change manager. The fourth book, "Creating a User Interface and Graphical Applications", contrary to what even some people in the group are aware of, HAS been started by Adele Goldberg. She showed me a folder full of writing on it. However, she points out that all of her books were written three times before being released and book four is still working on number one. Pavel Curtis Software Concepts Group, Xerox PARC