Re: Not numbered backups anymore - LISP OS instead?

> One thing that might be of use is the later versions of Genera supported deadline scheduling, splitting the scheduling system into the traditional event-driven scheduler of earlier versions (which allows the user a great deal of control over when individual processes could be run) and a separate RTOS-aligned scheduling system which IIRC the system used for comms but was available to the user. I suspect it used the RT clock as just another event, but did have to incorporate the logic for deadlines.


Interesting… While instrument control in the 1980’s did imply a lot of realtime OS capabilities and direct I/O control to custom parallel interfaces, today that has essentially become simple USB Comms to self-contained instruments or HTTP access over TCP/IP.  So probably the Genera systems you mention would be sufficient.

But my concern is also wider than just the instrument control. In particular, I was hinting at todays parallel execution of large software subsystems using multi-core processors and SMP, with pure functional code and messaging, as well as publication-quality graphic displays for data analysis. What we have today in Lispworks with GP and CAPI, especially on Macintosh display systems, is truly magnificent visual quality and with PDF interchange.

Even SBCL is currently incapable of matching what I can produce relatively simply in Lispworks. Probably with much more intense work in SBCL I could manage to duplicate the quality, but the effort would be Herculean. Lispworks (even with GP and CAPI) stretched my own capabilities to provide the scientific display system that I now have.

It would be really neat to have the Genera mythic features that I keep hearing about. I once wrote some ZetaLisp over a remote connection to Princeton, back in 1975, before I even understood that I was talking to Lisp. Maybe a Genera system could be coaxed to duplicate what I now have with Lispworks?

- DM

> On Feb 14, 2026, at 07:42, Bradford Miller (as bradford dot w dot miller at gmail dot com) <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 14, 2026, at 8:26 AM, David McClain (as dbm at refined-audiometrics dot com) <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> For me, a computer is useless unless it can control laboratory equipment, collect data, and analyze data - signal and image processing. Or control a music and mixing studio running a DAW (just another form of signal processing).
> 
> One thing that might be of use is the later versions of Genera supported deadline scheduling, splitting the scheduling system into the traditional event-driven scheduler of earlier versions (which allows the user a great deal of control over when individual processes could be run) and a separate RTOS-aligned scheduling system which IIRC the system used for comms but was available to the user. I suspect it used the RT clock as just another event, but did have to incorporate the logic for deadlines.
> 
> 
> 
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