The video shows an early Interface Builder written in Lisp.
It runs on a Lisp Machine board for the Mac II range: the TI MicroExplorer. That was a Nubus board with TI's Lisp chip.
The Lisp system was originally developed at MIT and then by LMI. TI had a license and developed their own range of machines and the software for it for a few years. Beginning of the AI winter TI closed that business.
The TI Lisp chip was a 32Bit microprocessor designed to run Lisp applications in compact computers. Earlier Lisp Machines were much larger.
The Lisp Machine inside the Mac had an interface to the Mac OS, so that one could write Lisp applications on the MicroExplorer with Mac-like user interfaces.
The software was probably already written in Common Lisp (or ZetaLisp). It was also ported to the Mac using Common Lisp directly on the MacOS, without needing a Lisp Machine board. Earlier versions actually originated on the Mac and were written in LeLisp, a french Lisp dialect.
This comment, and the parent post are perhaps my favorite HN type of content.
Dylan [1] the language underpinning the Newton was also a kind of LISP. Fairly close timeframe as well. I wonder what the overlap was there; would be interesting to track the lineage of the LISP contingent at Apple. I would imagine Alan Kay would have some overlap with those folks as well.
This reminds me a bit of hyperfiddle[0], which I've looked at a few times but never really explored. I know the author (dustingetz) hangs out around here, and I wonder if any of this interface builder stuff was prior art.
In any case, I wish we had more tools for interactivity these days. I use emacs and it's given me a taste for what's possible, and I'm excited to see Guix[1] mature because it has fantastic sympathies with emacs. But it seems destined to be niche, even though it's such a wonderful vision of what computing could be.
Denny’s company ExperTelligence sold a product that I wrote in Lisp. He got Apple to pay for a full page ad in Scientific American for my product. He was really a lot of fun to work with.
that video was fascinating and depressing to watch at the same time. I know it's not apple to apple comparison, but I feel like 30 years of computer progress should've put us in better place in terms of ease of app dev.
It does seem like we found all the low hanging fruit very early and if we are being honest with ourselves have not discovered much in the way of profound ideas since.
But in terms the video here, if you have been around the UI space since desktop apps and are familiar with modern FE frameworks it does seem like we have gone backwards in many ways.
i am reminded of this every time i work with lisp or smalltalk. it feels like we barely made any progress since half a century ago. at best rust is a form of progress, and maybe pure functional programming (which lisp isn't), although the latter feels more like an exploration of boundaries (how pure can we make functional programming) rather than a technological advancement that actually helps us write better code.
Nice timeline! As the author of “Action!”, I’ve mused over the years at the poor quality of interface tools / environments. I’m happy to say that Apple is on to something with “SwiftUI’. They have completely rethought out a declarative UI, kept it quite interactive, and made it much easier to build quality IOS applications.
Most of the currently popular frameworks follow the pattern of organizations that make the case that "Designers" and "Programmers" need to be strictly separated.
Interfaces should be strictly separated from the internal application code, with generic layers between them. To do it otherwise means ending up with a "big ball of mud" style app, that cannot have its interface redesigned in any way other than by refactoring it completely.
[+] [-] lispm|6 years ago|reply
It runs on a Lisp Machine board for the Mac II range: the TI MicroExplorer. That was a Nubus board with TI's Lisp chip. The Lisp system was originally developed at MIT and then by LMI. TI had a license and developed their own range of machines and the software for it for a few years. Beginning of the AI winter TI closed that business.
The TI Lisp chip was a 32Bit microprocessor designed to run Lisp applications in compact computers. Earlier Lisp Machines were much larger.
The Lisp Machine inside the Mac had an interface to the Mac OS, so that one could write Lisp applications on the MicroExplorer with Mac-like user interfaces.
The software was probably already written in Common Lisp (or ZetaLisp). It was also ported to the Mac using Common Lisp directly on the MacOS, without needing a Lisp Machine board. Earlier versions actually originated on the Mac and were written in LeLisp, a french Lisp dialect.
[+] [-] gdubs|6 years ago|reply
Dylan [1] the language underpinning the Newton was also a kind of LISP. Fairly close timeframe as well. I wonder what the overlap was there; would be interesting to track the lineage of the LISP contingent at Apple. I would imagine Alan Kay would have some overlap with those folks as well.
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_(programming_language)
[+] [-] robto|6 years ago|reply
In any case, I wish we had more tools for interactivity these days. I use emacs and it's given me a taste for what's possible, and I'm excited to see Guix[1] mature because it has fantastic sympathies with emacs. But it seems destined to be niche, even though it's such a wonderful vision of what computing could be.
[0]http://www.hyperfiddle.net/ [1]https://guix.gnu.org/
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|6 years ago|reply
Denny’s company ExperTelligence sold a product that I wrote in Lisp. He got Apple to pay for a full page ad in Scientific American for my product. He was really a lot of fun to work with.
[+] [-] pcurve|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tistel|6 years ago|reply
It does seem like we found all the low hanging fruit very early and if we are being honest with ourselves have not discovered much in the way of profound ideas since.
But in terms the video here, if you have been around the UI space since desktop apps and are familiar with modern FE frameworks it does seem like we have gone backwards in many ways.
[+] [-] em-bee|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] QuamStiver|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oracle2025|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zozbot234|6 years ago|reply