marks (11/03/82)
With the recent press about Apple's forthcoming LISA workstation which is purported to use SMALLTALK as it's environment, my past interest in SMALLTALK has been rekindled. I re-read the August 1981 issue of Byte which was entirely devoted to the subject. I noticed that two books authored by Goldberg, Robson, and Ingalls are referred to in several of the articles - these being o SMALLTALK-80: The Language and It's Implementation, and o SMALLTALK-80: The Interactive Programming Environment. These books were not then in print, but were listed as forthcoming. Has anyone seen these in print? Our library's copy of "Books in Print - 1982" does not mention either. Perhaps if anyone at Xerox PARC sees this, they might respond. The purpose of both publications was to put SMALLTALK into the public domain. I am beginning to wonder if there aren't some machinations between Xerox and Apple to keep it out of the public domain until after LISA makes her debut. Mark Beckner - Bell Labs Naperville, Illinois 312-979-2297 / ihuxl!marks
mdrutenberg (11/08/82)
I know of two machines which you can @i(currently) think about running Smalltalk on. The Xerox Dolphin (the 1100) runs it right now and the Dorado (the 1132), which is not yet available, also runs it. I don't know what Apple's plans are for Smalltalk, but what I have read about their "research" mc68000 Smalltalk implementation looks quite interesting. Mike Rutenberg - U of Waterloo aka ...!decvax!watmath!mdrutenberg minor note: Smalltalk is all lower case except for the "S"
Anderson@Cmu-20c@sri-unix (11/12/82)
From: David B Anderson <Anderson@Cmu-20c> While I'm not privy to the political/economic issues involved, I do know that the release of the Smalltalk-80 system and book has been delayed until the spring of '83. I have been in touch with Dan Ingalls at PARC (one of the originators), and he tells me that while implementations have been done for the 68000 and VAX (among others), offical licensing isn't even being talked about yet. Apple is apparently waiting to release LISA until they have a complete system available, with many peripherals and software utilities. Looking forward to objects, David Anderson
FISCHER@Rutgers@sri-unix (11/12/82)
From: Ron <FISCHER@Rutgers> I talked to L. Peter Deutsch at the recent Lisp conference at CMU. He says that the books are now (finally!) at the publishers. Any further delays will really be out of their hands, but less likely(?) As for Xerox releasing their Smalltalk code, it is seeming less and less likely. Management types have gotten the idea that they could make money, LOTS of money, by selling Smalltalk at exhorbitant prices because they have the only supply for an enthusiastic demand (similar to what anyone selling a workstation does today). This probably won't much affect the release of new implementations, but will make them harder to bring up. Like newer Lisp systems most of the system's code was written in Smalltalk itself, with a "p-machine" underneath. If Xerox doesn't release this all of that code will have to be rewritten (or worse, not be supplied). This might make for a plethora of inconsistent Smalltalks, where implementors constantly recreate utilities. (ron) -------
bc@sri-unix (11/12/82)
Smalltalk is alive and doing well. The books have been seriously delayed, as I understand it, by a major redesign of the both the specification and the implementation of Smalltalk 80. The last I saw (about three weeks ago) the first book was scheduled for publication in February, 1983. Interest seems to be heating up in the industry too. Three years ago, the only response to a mention of it was "Smalltalk who?" Now a lot of companies are touting "object-oriented" systems (most of which aren't any such thing), and "Smalltalk-like", or "Xerox Star-like" interfaces. For those interested in sorting all this out, there's an excellent article on the subject of what object orientation is in the September '82 issue of SIGPLAN Notices: "Object Oriented Programming" by Tim Rentsch. I'm very interested in Smalltalk myself. I feel that it has a lot to teach us, both about styles of interface, and about the role of conceptual models in programming. Anyone care to contribute to a discussion of theory or experiences with Smalltalk or similar systems? I'm not sure if such a discussion belongs in net.lang or net.micro, but I don't think people listening to either group will object. Bruce Cohen Intel Corp. ...intelqa!omsvax!bc