Also: we already have DIY build instructions with STL files available at lisperaticomputers.com. However, the official device will have an aluminum enclosure.
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?
All the best with Lisperati!
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.
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…
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.
There's also
Devterm - https://www.clockworkpi.com/devterm
Popcorn Pocket - https://pocket.popcorncomputer.com/
Teenyserv - https://expanscape.com/teenyserv/the-teenyserv-prototypes/
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.
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...
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).
The Lisperati1000 Computer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26022797 - Feb 2021 (25 comments)
Thanks dang
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.
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.
I love the idea of a good keyboard + xterm + browser. A lot.
Alan Perlis, Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
is that it's purpose?
"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...
I was thinking e-ink and mechanical keys with a lightweight battery and retractable antennas
now I have some shopping to do
> 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.
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...
It was even featured on HN a few days ago:
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.
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)
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 :)
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.
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.
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!).
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.
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.)
"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.)
I did not make the association with viaweb. Yay RTML.
I now have a deeper appreciation for the ethos of his particular cyberdeck implementation.
;)
Thank you for the deterrent and inspiration to roll-my-own.
Adafruit and Sparkfun get ready.
The game controls were also garbage with that type of input sensor. It would have benefited greatly from a better keyboard, or a gamepad and doing away with the keyboard entirely.
Glad to see it coming back though!
