Re: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)

2012-03-16 Thread Marcel Weiher

On Mar 16, 2012, at 0:03 , Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote:

 Marcel Weiher wrote on Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:33:07 +0100
 I have a little Postscript interpreter/scratchpad in the AppStore 
 (TouchScript,
 http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/touchscript/id398914579?mt=8 ).  Admittedly, 
 it
 was mostly a trial balloon to see if something like that would be accepted, 
 and
 it was (2nd revision so far).  And somewhat surprisingly a (very) few people
 even seem to be using it!
 
 Sharing is via iTunes.
 
 Thanks for the tip! I see your description is Use the Postscript(tm)
 language to express your ideas and see the results on your iPhone.
 Transfer your creations to your computer via iTunes sharing as either
 PNG or Postscript documents.
 It is likely that the reviewers considered that Postscript documents
 means a text file (like a .pdf or .doc).

Or a .m or a .c or or a .pl or a .rb or a .js …  I am not sure how it is on 
other platforms, but on OS X program files are also documents.  I see your 
point, but I think it is a little thin to base your argument on a single word 
that is at the very least ambiguous (partly on purpose) when the rest of the 
description is very clear that this is about a programming language and that 
you are programming.

In addition the reviewers also actually run the program, and at that point it 
becomes 100% clear what this does.

 The user who gave you a bad review certainly did (another user corrected 
 him/her).

And the user(s) who corrected the first user chided him for not reading the 
fracking description or looking at the fracking screenshots (RTFD, LATFSS?).   
App Store purchasers are known for not looking at what they are buying and then 
complaining bitterly.  Fact of life...

 So this doesn't tell us what Apple would do with a language that allows you 
 to share
 programs.

I think it tells us that Apple does not, at this point, have a consistent or 
consistently applied policy.  Which may have something to do with the fact that 
such a policy is impossible.   So we chip away at the edges and live with the 
inconsistencies...

Marcel



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Re: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)

2012-03-15 Thread Marcel Weiher



On Mar 14, 2012, at 17:17 , Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote:
 Alan Kay wrote on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:53:21 -0700 (PDT)
 No matter what Apple says, the reasons clearly stem from strategies and 
 tactics
 of economic exclusion.
 So I agree with Max that the iPad at present is really the anti-Dynabook
 
 They have changed their position a little. I have a Hand Basic on my
 iPhone which is compatible with the Commodore 64 Basic. I can write and
 save programs, but can't send them to another device or load new
 programs from the Internet. Except I can - there are applications for
 the iPhone that give you access to the filing system and let you
 exchange files with a PC or Mac. But that is beyond most users, which
 seems to be a good enough barrier from Apple's viewpoint.

I have a little Postscript interpreter/scratchpad in the AppStore (TouchScript, 
http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/touchscript/id398914579?mt=8 ).  Admittedly, it 
was mostly a trial balloon to see if something like that would be accepted, and 
it was (2nd revision so far).  And somewhat surprisingly a (very) few people 
even seem to be using it!

Sharing is via iTunes.

I think people generally overthink the grand-strategy/evil-overlord aspects of 
Apple's actions.   Having spent time on the inside, it was always funny to see 
the interpretations in (particularly) the rumor mill of what were genuine 
screw-ups or we don't know how to do it better moments.   Not saying that 
Apple can't be very evil, they sure can.

In terms of apps, it seems to me that they went with a total lockdown model and 
have been gradually loosening.

 
 http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/

Very nice.

 You can program on the iPad/iPhone, but can't share.

Sharing via iTunes works with TouchScript.  So far.  

Marcel

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Re: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)

2012-03-15 Thread Jecel Assumpcao Jr.
Alan Kay wrote on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:44:33 -0700 (PDT)
 The CRISP was too slow, and had other problems in its details. Sakoman liked 
 it ...

Thanks for the information! Just looking at the papers about it I had
the impression that it would be reasonably faster than an ARM at the
same clock frequency while having a VAX-like code density. I was going
to suggest that implementing CRISP on an FPGA could be an interesting
project for one of the grad students at my university, but that doesn't
seem to be the case.

A rather different processor for running C (for floating point intensive
code) was the WM architecture:

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~wm/wm.html
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.45.1092

I only heard about it because it was the inspiration for the memory
interface in the version of Chuck Thacker's Tiny Computer used in the
Beehive multicore project. This, unfortunately, is probably too complex
for a student in my group.

 Bill Atkinson did Hypercard ... Larry made many other contributions at Xerox 
 and Apple

I know that Bill was the developer, but had the impression that Larry
had done what was needed to move from project to product. He certainly
was the one promoting it pre-launch in the old Smalltalk forums at BIX
(Byte Information eXchange).

 To me the Dynabook has always been 95% a service model and 5% physical
 specs (there were three main physical ideas for it, only one was the tablet).

2015 is almost here - time to move to the computer in glasses model
(lame Back to the Future reference, but I know you will agree).

BGB wrote on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:23:07 -0700
 the TSS?...
 
 it is still usable on x86 in 32-bit Protected-Mode.

I was thinking about about the LDT and GDT (Local Descriptor Table and
Global Descriptor Table). These still work, of course, but the current
implementations are so bad that it is faster to do the same thing 100%
in software. You do lose the security aspect, however.

It is funny that the wish to put the TSS to good use was the big
motivation for Linux. The resulting non portability (which is a lot less
important now than then) was one of the main complaints in Andrew
Tanenbaum's famous early rant about the OS. The first attempt to port
Linux (to the Alpha, if I remember correctly) required completely
rewriting that part and the changes were quickly brought back to the
Intel version.

Marcel Weiher wrote on Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:33:07 +0100
 I have a little Postscript interpreter/scratchpad in the AppStore 
 (TouchScript,
 http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/touchscript/id398914579?mt=8 ).  Admittedly, it
 was mostly a trial balloon to see if something like that would be accepted, 
 and
 it was (2nd revision so far).  And somewhat surprisingly a (very) few people
 even seem to be using it!

 Sharing is via iTunes.

Thanks for the tip! I see your description is Use the Postscript(tm)
language to express your ideas and see the results on your iPhone.
Transfer your creations to your computer via iTunes sharing as either
PNG or Postscript documents.

It is likely that the reviewers considered that Postscript documents
means a text file (like a .pdf or .doc). The user who gave you a bad
review certainly did (another user corrected him/her). So this doesn't
tell us what Apple would do with a language that allows you to share
programs.

David Harris wrote on Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:35:06 -0700 about
Wolfram|Alpha mobile

Thanks, but that is exactly what I was calling just a terminal and a
waste.

-- Jecel

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Re: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)

2012-03-14 Thread Mack
Jay Freeman has also released his Wraith Scheme for the iPad.

On Mar 14, 2012, at 9:17 AM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote:

 Alan Kay wrote on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:53:21 -0700 (PDT)
 A hardware vendor with huge volumes (like Apple) should be able to get a CPU
 vendor to make HW that offers real protection, and at a granularity that 
 makes
 more systems sense.
 
 They did just that when they founded ARM Ltd (with Acorn and VTI): the
 most significant change from the ARM3 to the ARM6 was a new MMU with a
 more fine grained protection mechnism which was designed specially for
 the Newton OS. No other system used it and though I haven't checked, I
 wouldn't be surprised if this feature was eliminated from more recent
 versions of ARM.
 
 Compared to a real capability system (like the Intel iAPX432/BiiN/960XA
 or the IBM AS/400) it was a rather awkward solution, but at least they
 did make an effort.
 
 Having been created under Scully, this technology did not survive Jobs'
 return.
 
 But the main point here is that there are no technical reasons why a child 
 should
 be restricted from making an Etoys or Scratch project and sharing it with 
 another
 child on an iPad.
 No matter what Apple says, the reasons clearly stem from strategies and 
 tactics
 of economic exclusion.
 So I agree with Max that the iPad at present is really the anti-Dynabook
 
 They have changed their position a little. I have a Hand Basic on my
 iPhone which is compatible with the Commodore 64 Basic. I can write and
 save programs, but can't send them to another device or load new
 programs from the Internet. Except I can - there are applications for
 the iPhone that give you access to the filing system and let you
 exchange files with a PC or Mac. But that is beyond most users, which
 seems to be a good enough barrier from Apple's viewpoint.
 
 The same thing applies to this nice native development environment for
 Lua on the iPad:
 
 http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/
 
 You can program on the iPad/iPhone, but can't share.
 
 -- Jecel
 
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Re: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)

2012-03-14 Thread Alan Kay
Yep, I was there and trying to get the Newton project off the awful ATT chip 
they had first chosen. Larry Tesler (who worked with us at PARC) finally wound 
up taking over this project and doing a number of much better things with it. 
Overall what happened with Newton was too bad -- it could have been much better 
-- but there were many too many different opinions and power bases involved.

If you have a good version of confinement (which is pretty simple HW-wise) you 
can use Butler Lampson's schemes for Cal-TSS to make a workable version of a 
capability system.

And, yep, I managed to get them to allow interpreters to run on the iPad, but 
was not able to get Steve to countermand the no sharing rule.

Cheers,

Alan





 From: Jecel Assumpcao Jr. je...@merlintec.com
To: Fundamentals of New Computing fonc@vpri.org 
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 9:17 AM
Subject: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)
 
Alan Kay wrote on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:53:21 -0700 (PDT)
 A hardware vendor with huge volumes (like Apple) should be able to get a CPU
 vendor to make HW that offers real protection, and at a granularity that 
 makes
 more systems sense.

They did just that when they founded ARM Ltd (with Acorn and VTI): the
most significant change from the ARM3 to the ARM6 was a new MMU with a
more fine grained protection mechnism which was designed specially for
the Newton OS. No other system used it and though I haven't checked, I
wouldn't be surprised if this feature was eliminated from more recent
versions of ARM.

Compared to a real capability system (like the Intel iAPX432/BiiN/960XA
or the IBM AS/400) it was a rather awkward solution, but at least they
did make an effort.

Having been created under Scully, this technology did not survive Jobs'
return.

 But the main point here is that there are no technical reasons why a child 
 should
 be restricted from making an Etoys or Scratch project and sharing it with 
 another
 child on an iPad.
 No matter what Apple says, the reasons clearly stem from strategies and 
 tactics
 of economic exclusion.
 So I agree with Max that the iPad at present is really the anti-Dynabook

They have changed their position a little. I have a Hand Basic on my
iPhone which is compatible with the Commodore 64 Basic. I can write and
save programs, but can't send them to another device or load new
programs from the Internet. Except I can - there are applications for
the iPhone that give you access to the filing system and let you
exchange files with a PC or Mac. But that is beyond most users, which
seems to be a good enough barrier from Apple's viewpoint.

The same thing applies to this nice native development environment for
Lua on the iPad:

http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/

You can program on the iPad/iPhone, but can't share.

-- Jecel

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Re: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)

2012-03-14 Thread Jecel Assumpcao Jr.
Alan Kay wrote on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:36:30 -0700 (PDT)
 Yep, I was there and trying to get the Newton project off the awful ATT chip
 they had first chosen.

Interesting - a few months ago I studied the datasheets for the Hobbit
and read all the old CRISP papers and found this chip rather cute. It is
even more C centric than RISCs (specially the ARM) so might not be a
good choice for other languages. Another project that started out using
this and then had to switch (to the PowerPC) was the BeBox. In the link
I give below it says both projects were done by the same people (Jean
Louis Gassée and Steve Sakoman), so in a way it was really just one
project that used the chip.

 Larry Tesler (who worked with us at PARC) finally wound up taking over this
 project and doing a number of much better things with it.

He was also responsible for giving us Hypercard, right?

 Overall what happened with Newton was too bad -- it could have been much
 better -- but there were many too many different opinions and power bases
 involved.

This looks like a reasonable history of the Newton project (though some
parts that I know aren't quite right, so I can't guess how accurate the
parts I didn't know are):

http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/john-sculley-newton-origin.html

It doesn't mention NewtonScript nor Object Soups. I have never used it
myself, only read about it and seen some demos. But my impression is
that this was the closest thing we have had to the dynabook yet.

 If you have a good version of confinement (which is pretty simple HW-wise) you
 can use Butler Lampson's schemes for Cal-TSS to make a workable version of a
 capability system.

The 286 protected mode was good enough for this, and was extended in the
386. I am not sure all modern x86 processors still implement these, and
if they do it is likely that actually using them will hurt performance
so much that it isn't an option in practice.

 And, yep, I managed to get them to allow interpreters to run on the iPad, but 
 was
 not able to get Steve to countermand the no sharing rule.

That is a pity, though at least having native languages makes these
devices a reasonable replacement for my old Radio Shack PC-4 calculator.
I noticed that neither Matlab nor Mathematica are available for the
iPad, but only simple terminal apps that allow you to access these
applications running on your PC. What a waste!

-- Jecel

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Re: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)

2012-03-14 Thread Alan Kay
Hi Jecel

The CRISP was too slow, and had other problems in its details. Sakoman liked it 
...

Bill Atkinson did Hypercard ... Larry made many other contributions at Xerox 
and Apple

To me the Dynabook has always been 95% a service model and 5% physical specs 
(there were three main physical ideas for it, only one was the tablet).

Cheers,

Alan





 From: Jecel Assumpcao Jr. je...@merlintec.com
To: Fundamentals of New Computing fonc@vpri.org 
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: [fonc] Apple and hardware (was: Error trying to compile COLA)
 
Alan Kay wrote on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:36:30 -0700 (PDT)
 Yep, I was there and trying to get the Newton project off the awful ATT chip
 they had first chosen.

Interesting - a few months ago I studied the datasheets for the Hobbit
and read all the old CRISP papers and found this chip rather cute. It is
even more C centric than RISCs (specially the ARM) so might not be a
good choice for other languages. Another project that started out using
this and then had to switch (to the PowerPC) was the BeBox. In the link
I give below it says both projects were done by the same people (Jean
Louis Gassée and Steve Sakoman), so in a way it was really just one
project that used the chip.

 Larry Tesler (who worked with us at PARC) finally wound up taking over this
 project and doing a number of much better things with it.

He was also responsible for giving us Hypercard, right?

 Overall what happened with Newton was too bad -- it could have been much
 better -- but there were many too many different opinions and power bases
 involved.

This looks like a reasonable history of the Newton project (though some
parts that I know aren't quite right, so I can't guess how accurate the
parts I didn't know are):

http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/john-sculley-newton-origin.html

It doesn't mention NewtonScript nor Object Soups. I have never used it
myself, only read about it and seen some demos. But my impression is
that this was the closest thing we have had to the dynabook yet.

 If you have a good version of confinement (which is pretty simple HW-wise) 
 you
 can use Butler Lampson's schemes for Cal-TSS to make a workable version of a
 capability system.

The 286 protected mode was good enough for this, and was extended in the
386. I am not sure all modern x86 processors still implement these, and
if they do it is likely that actually using them will hurt performance
so much that it isn't an option in practice.

 And, yep, I managed to get them to allow interpreters to run on the iPad, 
 but was
 not able to get Steve to countermand the no sharing rule.

That is a pity, though at least having native languages makes these
devices a reasonable replacement for my old Radio Shack PC-4 calculator.
I noticed that neither Matlab nor Mathematica are available for the
iPad, but only simple terminal apps that allow you to access these
applications running on your PC. What a waste!

-- Jecel

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