Daniel Weinreb on Symbolics' decision to buy instead of build the keys for their keyboards:
We made our own monitor electronics, our own laser-printer electronics, we wrote the microcode, we wrote the operating system, and so on, but making our own keys was, finally, below the level of abstraction that demarked our build/buy line. We were really, really crazy, but we were not really, really, really, really crazy.
Troutgirl: "I worry a lot about whether handwork has lost all value in the modern age."
Posted by jjwiseman at December 09, 2002 11:12 PMwell, at least software is still handmade ;)
Posted by: A N Other on December 10, 2002 04:58 AMNo, making software by hand is a lost art. Nowadays people just know how to make source code.
Posted by: timboy on December 10, 2002 09:11 AMwell, at least source code is still handmade ;)
Posted by: A N Other on December 10, 2002 09:52 AMNo, making source code by hand is a lost art. Nowadays people just know how to use text editors or code generators to make source code.
Posted by: Andreas Fuchs on December 10, 2002 10:19 AMOK, so maybe I will give in and quote a bit of another Weinreb message discussing why they never started working on the "S"-type lisp machine: "...I think by that time it was clear that the whole custom-hardware concept had, as Tolkien puts it, 'diminished, and gone into the East'."
Posted by: jjwiseman on December 10, 2002 10:38 AMI want a Meta key!
Hell, I want a Hyper, a Symbol and an Infinite keys!
g.
Posted by: Giovanni on December 11, 2002 03:02 AMLife has never been the same since I lost square, circle and triangle.
Posted by: Toomas on December 12, 2002 02:00 AMI have them on my Playstation, but I'd only get the points for running Lisp if I bought that "Jak and Daxter" game...
Posted by: Michael Hannemann on December 12, 2002 08:41 AM