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.
> 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?
It's raspbian under the hood
Apologies, read the post too quickly. Thanks.
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)
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!
Be interesting to see demos of where it's at!
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!
Everyone is using pretty much the same screen, model HSD088PW1. As for longevity, I guess if I'm honest I have to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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'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?
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.
Had I known that I would have probably been more inclined to immediately read more! I love lisps, but didn't need/want a dedicated machine, I feel foolish for assuming it wasn't something more straight forward :)
Gotcha, thanks!
Would I be able to put a Planck (instead of the Vortex Core) into the aluminum enclosure version?
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.
That’s too bad. I’ve been hoping the keyboard could be swapped out with something running QMK, but I’ve also been searching for a low-profile, Bluetooth Planck and realize there actually isn’t that much variety out there.
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?
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/
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.
> 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)
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 :)
Barski's music video[1] might give some more flavor to PG's comment. Brightens my day every time I watch it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The king of them all, of course, is the Radio Shack TRS-80 PC-2 pocket computer. Much cooler than the Sharp ones because Radio Shack.
The Gemini PDA from your planetcom link looks interesting.
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!).
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.
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.
I don't see where the parens are on the keyboard. No number row. Is it another shift/fn level down?
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.
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...
> 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.
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).
This looks like a Vortex Core keyboard, with the default layout.
I bet Shift plus one of the two sides of that spacebar would do nicely.
perhaps the idea is to use paredit that mostly manages them for you
One related thread:
The Lisperati1000 Computer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26022797 - Feb 2021 (25 comments)
Totally Off Topic, but I really appreciate all the curating you do on these threads.
Thanks dang
> 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.
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.
There were no system specific functions in 01960 because there was only one system, which is to say, one implementation of LISP. EVAL was dynamically scoped. And good luck getting any FEXPR-based code from 01960 to run!
Lucky us, writing FEXPRs was not a documented feature in the Lisp 1 manual from 1960.
I don't understand how any neck holds up to sustained use of devices with this screen placement.
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.
What do you define as "book reading posture"? Book at eye level, arms holding it up?
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.)
What exactly is a cyberdeck?
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.
It has many different definitions, but in this case I mean a flat portable computer, without a hinge.
What are the best cyberdecks I can buy right now?
I love the idea of a good keyboard + xterm + browser. A lot.
I really don't like the keyboard, but at least it's always nice to see a brand new LISP machine :-)
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