[HN Gopher] The Lisperati1000 is a cyberdeck terminal dedicated ...
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The Lisperati1000 is a cyberdeck terminal dedicated to Lisp
programming
Author : benwen
Score : 148 points
Date : 2021-05-13 07:25 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hackster.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hackster.io)
| vessenes wrote:
| Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of
| Eden: Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful.
| The LISP machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and
| fig-leaf.
|
| Alan Perlis, Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
| kratom_sandwich wrote:
| What's with the recent wave of portable terminals? Has any of
| these made it ever into the hands of customers? I believe the
| only device that actually came out is the Cosmo Communicator
| (https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/cosmo-communicator)
|
| There's also
|
| Devterm - https://www.clockworkpi.com/devterm
|
| Popcorn Pocket - https://pocket.popcorncomputer.com/
|
| Teenyserv - https://expanscape.com/teenyserv/the-teenyserv-
| prototypes/
| throwaway316943 wrote:
| It seems to be a collision of custom keyboards, cheap and
| capable SoCs, easy access to displays and driver boards and a
| dose of nostalgia and tech weariness.
|
| I like this one but I'd suffer it to be a bit larger to
| accommodate a standard keyboard and a pi4. I love the display,
| seems like you can buy them on Amazon and elsewhere since they
| are targeted at case modders and the like.
| daniellarusso wrote:
| Cyberdecks have been popular for at least a year or so, but,
| yes, not sure why this one in particular made it to the
| frontpage.
|
| Hackaday has quite a bit of cyberdeck projects on their blog,
| here:
|
| https://hackaday.com/tag/cyberdeck/
|
| I am guessing part of the appeal is having a portable device
| with a QWERTY tactile keyboard that does not have a locked-down
| OS.
|
| Also, it is much easier to replace a damaged screen when
| compared to an iPad.
| nanna wrote:
| > not sure why this one in particular made it to the
| frontpage
|
| Because of HNs connection to Lisp via Paul Graham, but also
| because Lisperati1000's creator Conrad Barski is a bit of a
| legend in Lisp circles, having authored Land of Lisp (LOL)
|
| http://landoflisp.com/
|
| Of LOL, PG said, "Turns out the border between genius and
| insanity is a pretty cheery place".
|
| So now you see why HN holds the Lisperati1000 especially dear
| :)
| eigenhombre wrote:
| Barski's music video[1] might give some more flavor to PG's
| comment. Brightens my day every time I watch it.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM1Zb3xmvMc
| nanna wrote:
| How could I forget!
|
| "Simple but refined, guaranteed to blow your mind! The
| Land of Lisp. Minimal and sleek but so clever you'll
| freak! The land of Lisp."
|
| Now I too eat parentheses for breakfast, and lunch.
|
| (Or at least I aspire to.)
| daniellarusso wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| I did not make the association with viaweb. Yay RTML.
|
| I now have a deeper appreciation for the ethos of his
| particular cyberdeck implementation.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I guess many miss the days of:
|
| https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/898/Psion/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Portfolio
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Communicator
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_Libretto
|
| Among plenty of other ones.
| zentiggr wrote:
| My Psion Series 3A got lots of use until the third time I
| dropped it and wrecked the wiring in the hinge area, and it
| refused to power up again. Was sad.
| cestith wrote:
| HP LX series was a big one. The AlphaSmart Dana almost fits,
| too - it was a Palm device rather than just the dedicated
| word processor and keyboard functions.
| daniellarusso wrote:
| The Gemini PDA from your planetcom link looks interesting.
| dTal wrote:
| Don't. I got a Cosmo Communicator, the successor device.
|
| The good: the keyboard is great (At first - see below). It
| can be taken apart, which is great because you'll be doing
| that a lot...
|
| The bad: Everything else. The device is fragile and
| impractical and the build quality is questionable. The case
| is sheet metal held in with tiny tabs - the hinge and bottom
| cover often pop off spontaneously. Breakages are common and
| no spares are available except by emailing support and
| begging; and if they agree, they will charge you the earth.
| The cover display cracked entirely by itself - a design flaw.
| Most unforgivably, after a year, the keyboard has worn in
| such a way that it frequently misses keystrokes. And - the
| coup-de-gras for me - there's no overcurrent protection on
| the right USB port, so it will melt the first time some lint
| shorts it (ask me how I know!).
| daniellarusso wrote:
| Well, now I understand why people build their own.
|
| ;)
|
| Thank you for the deterrent and inspiration to roll-my-own.
|
| Adafruit and Sparkfun get ready.
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| Apparently Adafruit will be selling a device inspired by
| the PocketCHIP: https://www.hackster.io/news/diodes-
| delight-s-next-raspberry...
| sanitycheck wrote:
| Thanks for this, I've almost bought one of those a couple
| of times and your experience may help ensure I don't click
| "buy" in a moment of weakness in future. I absolutely love
| the _idea_ of it but the implementation is insufficiently
| good.
| snemvalts wrote:
| I don't understand how any neck holds up to sustained use of
| devices with this screen placement.
| drcode wrote:
| This is a common concern with this form factor, but I think
| there's a lot of variability between people on how comfortable
| they are with a "book reading" posture, such as required by a
| cyberdeck. It will work for some people, not so much for other
| people.
| fouric wrote:
| What do you define as "book reading posture"? Book at eye
| level, arms holding it up?
| drcode wrote:
| Well, I think most people read a book in one of two
| postures: (1) placing the book on a desk (2) sitting on a
| couch or bed, with legs raised, book resting on legs https:
| //images.theconversation.com/files/361577/original/fil...
|
| The Lisperati1000 can function in either posture. (I would
| argue that holding a book in front of you in the air is not
| a common way to read long-form books, due to arm fatigue.)
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| What exactly is a cyberdeck?
| drcode wrote:
| It has many different definitions, but in this case I mean
| a flat portable computer, without a hinge.
| detaro wrote:
| It comes from cyberpunk literature, where a "deck" is
| whatever portable device someone uses to access
| cyberspace/hack stuff/..., and has recently become somewhat
| of a catchall for DIY/customized/unusual "cool" portable
| computing devices that don't fit in the common
| laptop/tablet/... categories.
| drcode wrote:
| Hi, I'm with Lisperati and we're working hard to manufacture
| these. Feel free to ask any questions. No, we don't know when
| they'll be ready, but when they are ready we will sell them
| directly (no presale/crowdfunding/etc)
|
| Also: we already have DIY build instructions with STL files
| available at lisperaticomputers.com. However, the official device
| will have an aluminum enclosure.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I'm thinking of purchasing one. Is it essentially just Linux
| with Lisp packages setup on top, or running some custom lisp OS
| on top of whatever is running on the pi?
| drcode wrote:
| To be honest, there's not much "lispy" about it, aside from
| the branding. It's a bog standard raspi cyberdeck, at least
| initially out of the gate.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Gotcha, thanks!
| nanna wrote:
| > we're working hard to manufacture these.
|
| Really exciting!
|
| Assumedly it's Linux under the hood, and you'd be able to
| install whatever packages normally available through, say apt?
| So this could this be used for writing LaTeX, for example?
|
| Also and tangentially, has there been any progress with Walking
| Dream?
|
| http://walkingdre.am/
| slim wrote:
| It's raspbian under the hood
| nanna wrote:
| Apologies, read the post too quickly. Thanks.
| drcode wrote:
| LOL I've built a lot of tech for walkingdre.am, but my best
| prototype so far just isn't "fun" enough (based on a highly
| subjective definition of "fun") so I'm stuck at the moment,
| trying to improve that aspect of the game (particularly, the
| combat and crafting system)
| ribs wrote:
| Post updates sign-up page is broken, so I'm not sure if I'm
| subscribed. I'm an Oculus Quest user and really want to try
| a redirected walking game so I need those updates!
| drcode wrote:
| Oh yeah, there was a mailchimp issue, I will look into
| it.
| nanna wrote:
| Be interesting to see demos of where it's at!
| facorreia wrote:
| What's the value proposition over a more general-purpose
| portable computer like a MacBook Air?
| drcode wrote:
| The primary benefit over a Macbook Air is the full size 40%
| mechanical keyboard. Other advantages are hackability,
| smaller footprint, quicker access without having to open
| screen, more inconspicuous when using in public space.
|
| But this is very much a "niche" device, if you are
| questioning if it would be useful, you almost certainly
| should get a general-purpose device like a macbook, instead.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| Would I be able to put a Planck (instead of the Vortex Core)
| into the aluminum enclosure version?
| drcode wrote:
| I bought a Planck specifically to answer this question.
| Unfortunately, it has a significantly bigger footprint than a
| vortex core, so it would be difficult.
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| That's surprising. From the photo's top row, it looks like
| the Lisperati's keyboard is a key wider than the 12x4
| Planck. Does the Vortex use smaller caps?
| drcode wrote:
| I believe it's a bit taller than the vortex core. I think
| the key caps rows are spaced further apart, though both
| have 4 rows.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Is the 8.8" ultrawide display from Waveshare? I'm seeing it
| becoming a standard with cyberdecks nowadays[1] but how is the
| longevity of the display?
|
| All the best with Lisperati!
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/
| drcode wrote:
| Everyone is using pretty much the same screen, model
| HSD088PW1. As for longevity, I guess if I'm honest I have to
| say -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| If you think this is a concern and think you know how to
| resolve the question and are an engineer with expertise in
| this subject matter, we'd be happy to talk to get a firmer
| answer.
| ashton314 wrote:
| Tell me more about the keyboard: can I reprogram it if I want?
| Looks mechanical; can I pick/replace my key switches? Is it
| running the QMK firmware?
|
| I would have killed to have one of these things in high school.
| A broken Lisp on a TI-84 just doesn't cut it...
| drcode wrote:
| The keyboard is borrowed from a Vortex Core. It is fully
| programmable. It unfortunately does not support QMK, but is
| still quite good.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I have a feeling that the Casio post not long ago motivated this
| submission. Or maybe it's the Zeitgeist
| blue1 wrote:
| what exactly is a cyberdeck (outside of Neuromancer)?
| numpad0 wrote:
| A growing trend of _Neuromancer_ -inspired, utilitarian-
| looking, retro-themed, console-focused, low-volume or one-off
| art projects.
| creamytaco wrote:
| Plastic waste.
| jakearmitage wrote:
| You must be fun at parties.
| lmohseni wrote:
| It's a custom built quasi portable computer, sometimes based on
| a ras pi or other cheap and small dev board. Check out
| old.reddit.com/r/cyberdeck!
| Slackwise wrote:
| If this were a 60% board instead that could fold the display over
| to cover the keys for transportation, this would be an instant
| sell for me.
| rowland66 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > But if you need some complex algorithms -- particularly
| algorithms that do a lot of heavy mathematical lifting -- then
| Lisp is the ideal choice.
|
| Is this right? I never thought of LISP as good fit for numerical
| processing.
| vincent-manis wrote:
| Somebody (Guy Steele?) once did a benchmark of Maclisp and the
| DEC PDP-10 Fortran compiler on numerical problems. As I recall
| Maclisp came out ahead.
| bitwize wrote:
| If you stick to floats and arrays of floats, Fortran is
| probably still faster.
|
| But Common Lisp and fully conformant Schemes have an extensive
| numeric tower including arbitrary precision integers,
| rationals, and complex numbers built in, making Lisp useful for
| some kinds of numeric computing that would be cumbersome even
| in Fortran.
|
| Plus, I once heard of a guy who wrote an FFT implementation in
| Gambit Scheme that beat FFTW in speed...
| sedachv wrote:
| Common Lisp is the best calculator because it handles rational
| and complex numbers, and transcendental functions over them,
| correctly.
| lispm wrote:
| It may not be the fastest, but something like Common Lisp has
| extensive numeric capabilities built-in like computing with
| floats, bignums, complex, ratios, ... Extensive mathematical
| software has been written in Lisp like Reduce (written in
| Standard Lisp), Macsyma, Axiom, ... In education for a while
| something like Derive, MuSimp/MuMath, ... was used. Derive
| should also have been used in pocket calculators, which would
| be in the spirit of Lisperati1000.
| olodus wrote:
| Lisp was the favored language for programming AI back in the
| day. Though the kind of AI problems focused on then was much
| more symbolic-themed than numerical themed as they are now.
| Lisp is highly regarded when solving complex problems, though
| would probably not get hailed as the fastest language.
| lallysingh wrote:
| I don't see where the parens are on the keyboard. No number row.
| Is it another shift/fn level down?
| ynniv wrote:
| I bet Shift plus one of the two sides of that spacebar would do
| nicely.
| valyagolev wrote:
| perhaps the idea is to use paredit that mostly manages them for
| you
| dTal wrote:
| Fn + K/L
|
| I think it's a strange choice not to have them be first class,
| unshifted characters - and yet have such a dizzying array of
| modifier keys.
| [deleted]
| lallysingh wrote:
| Fn + home row isn't bad.
| fouric wrote:
| I agree with you.
|
| I also think that the keyboard was likely designed to be
| familiar to those comfortable with the standardized keyboard
| layout, as opposed to being efficient.
|
| From an efficiency perspective, there's a _lot_ that you can
| improve on, both in the general case (layout for English
| typing) and in the special case of Lisp programming - but I
| don 't think that was their goal.
|
| I wouldn't buy one of these myself, but I can understand why
| someone else would.
|
| As a software hack, there's always Shift Parentheses[1].
|
| [1] https://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-
| cadet/#s17...
| sedachv wrote:
| > As a software hack, there's always Shift Parentheses
|
| On any PC keyboard, just swap parentheses with square or
| curly brackets. That is way more useful even if you never
| program in Lisp. One of several things the Lisp Machine
| keyboard layouts did well.
| nerdponx wrote:
| This looks like a Vortex Core keyboard, with the default
| layout.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Custom keyboards often seem to follow different rules when it
| comes to ergonomics and intuitive keybindings. I have my
| arrow keys on Fn+h/j/k/l and they're much faster and more
| comfortable to reach than on any standard keyboard. I have my
| number row behind the Fn key and yet I'm faster and more
| accurate at entering numbers because the physical keys are
| placed better. It's very hard to predict how well a key
| combination works.
|
| Also, tiny keyboards are usually programmable, so the key
| labels might not be correct. If your layout is custom enough
| it becomes very hard to find keycaps which match the
| setup(and basically impossible if you don't want to wait >6
| months).
| gorgoiler wrote:
| What are the best cyberdecks I can buy right now?
|
| I love the idea of a good keyboard + xterm + browser. A lot.
| [deleted]
| shimonabi wrote:
| The idea isn't new.
|
| It was even featured on HN a few days ago:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-yuZ2pejGU
| grae_QED wrote:
| Wow, I remember commenting on the original r/cyberdeck post three
| months ago. Pretty wild that it's on hacker news now.
| dang wrote:
| One related thread:
|
| _The Lisperati1000 Computer_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26022797 - Feb 2021 (25
| comments)
| niccl wrote:
| Totally Off Topic, but I really appreciate all the curating you
| do on these threads.
|
| Thanks dang
| dkersten wrote:
| > Lisp is one of the oldest programming languages that is still
| in use today
|
| I don't like that this keeps getting repeated. Common Lisp is
| different from the original Lisp and other modern Lisps are even
| more different. It's like saying Algol is one of the oldest
| programming languages still in use today, because many Algol-
| descendants are quite popular still.
| lispm wrote:
| Common Lisp may be expanded, but it still has the core of early
| Lisp, and its ancestors trace back to it: ZetaLisp, Maclisp,
| Lisp 1.5, Lisp 1.
|
| It still has the old operators: car, cdr, cons, eval, apply,
| append, cond, quote, lambda, set, setq, atom, and, eq, equal,
| list, map, mapcon, maplist, nconc, not, null, or, print, prog,
| read, remprop, rplaca, rplacd, ...
|
| It has the old data structures like symbols and cons cells.
|
| Thus programs from 1960 often can be made running in Common
| Lisp, unless they make use of system specific functions.
| jmrm wrote:
| I really don't like the keyboard, but at least it's always nice
| to see a brand new LISP machine :-)
| sunsipples wrote:
| I have no use for this but want one.
|
| is that it's purpose?
| FearNotDaniel wrote:
| Yes. From the same site's review of a different device:
|
| "Cyberdecks are, almost by their very definition, mostly about
| aesthetics. There are very few of them that are designed to
| serve a real, practical purpose that can't be done better by a
| modern laptop or tablet."
|
| https://www.hackster.io/news/the-griz-sextant-is-a-raspberry...
| sunsipples wrote:
| thank you, im looking at my old netbook which i still use
| from time to time and wondering how i can maybe lessen it's
| usefulness while making it more aesthetically interesting.
|
| I was thinking e-ink and mechanical keys with a lightweight
| battery and retractable antennas
|
| now I have some shopping to do
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(page generated 2021-05-13 23:01 UTC)