mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) (09/01/89)
I doubt people today would consider it a benefit, but another PDP-10 benefit which definitely affected Lisp implementations was the fact that it was a uniquely pleasurable architecture to write assembly code. Consequently, many bright hackers would hand-code large and quite efficient assembly language programs for the PDP-10, including Lisp kernels, in preference to higher-level languages. It was almost always possible to hand-code an assembly program for the PDP-10, in the same (or less!) time to do the same job as a higher-level language program. Of course, compilers today are much better and "modern" machine architectures are definitely *not* pleasurable to code in assembly. Also, the PDP-10 experience with lock-in to a single hardware vendor was perhaps the best argument that Unix has ever had. Mark Crispin / 6158 Lariat Loop NE / Bainbridge Island, WA 98110-2020 mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU / MRC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil / (206) 842-2385 Atheist & Proud / 450cc Rebel pilot -- a step up from 250cc's!!! tabesaserarenakerebanaranakattarashii...kisha no kisha ga kisha de kisha-shita sumomo mo momo, momo mo momo, momo ni mo iroiro aru uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru