drs@bnl.UUCP (David Robert Stampf) (08/24/84)
I've been hearing the word "Smalltalk" crop up in a lot of conversations lately - mostly in reference to what was done right with the Macintosh, or in Sci. Am. articles and in a few network articles. I'm trying to learn more about it, but I am struck by two strange facts: 1) The only articles written about it (Byte Aug. 81 & the smalltalk books) are by those people who wrote the system and one has to be a little wary of their opinions, and 2) There do not seem to be any commercially available systems running smalltalk. Since I have only recently started looking into this, I could be all wet. On the other hand, I'm having a lot of trouble getting any further info on it. I would appreciate any pointers and/or opinions that may be out there. I can be reached on the net (bnl!drs) or by phone 516-282-4148 or through the mails, Dave Stampf, Applied Mathematics Dept., Brookhaven Natl. Lab., Upton N.Y. 11973 Thanks <dave
DDYER@USC-ISIB.ARPA (08/31/84)
From: Dave Dyer <DDYER@USC-ISIB.ARPA> I've been hearing the word "Smalltalk" crop up in a lot of conversations lately - mostly in reference to what was done right with the Macintosh, or in Sci. Am. articles and in a few network articles. Smalltalk is a great idea whose ship hasn't quite come in yet. As far as I know, the only commercially available "real" smalltalk is on a Dolphin, from Xerox. But rumor has it that you have to take lots of qualudes to slow yourself down enough to like it. Much better is running it on a Dorado (also from Xerox). The real essence of smalltalk is its "object oriented" programming style. I think quite a few commercial systems have adopted the essential elements of the style (active agents, message passing, etc.), without buying the whole hog. How much of this shows through to the users varies. The places where you can buy commercial systems and program in the style are pretty limited -- as far as I know only on lisp machines. The key words here are "LOOPS" on Xerox-type lisp machines running Interlisp-D, and "FLAVORS" on Mit-type lisp machines from Symbolics and LMI. I do essentially all of my programming with FLAVORS. -------
rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch) (09/06/84)
On the question of 8MB being adequate for a Smalltalk: An 8MB Smalltalk would be very comfortable. Not that you couldn't use more, you understand, but 8MB would go a *long* ways. By contrast, commercial Xerox Smalltalk systems provide (I think) about 2MB. Also, just because the hardware limitation is 8MB, there is no reason that the Smalltalk virtual address space couldn't be bigger. Such virtual memory systems have been done, see for example the LOOM paper in "Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice". These virtual memory systems must be done without the benefit of hardware support, but the overhead needn't be high, i.e., extra cycles while the interpreter does the virtual memory check aren't as common as you might think.
mark@gymble.UUCP (Mark Weiser) (09/16/84)
> ...Finally, IS 8MB too > small for Lisp, or is that just a personal bias? I think it is enough. Do you actually run lisp code that addresses more than 8M? > Anyway, as you would expect with Tektronix, the display is mighty > impressive, and fast. I would think that the superior display would > make this machine a superior machine for Smalltalk over the Xerox 1108 > or 1100. The display is considerably smaller, and has fewer pixels, than a 1108 or 1100 display. -- Spoken: Mark Weiser ARPA: mark@maryland CSNet: mark@umcp-cs UUCP: {seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!mark