A cute and up-to-date version of Smalltalk is Cuis [1]. I enjoyed playing around with it and developing small projects, but I will never get used to using a graphical VM and UI to develop ordinary programs. That's too far from the UNIX philosophy, which I respect and follow for good reason. Nevertheless, the curious hacker in me is attracted to the freshness and unconventionalness of Smalltalk as a unique programming experience.
Cuis Smalltalk and related implementations are rather self-contained systems to the point they seemed walled off from the rest of the system, making it difficult to develop Smalltalk programs using external tools.
However, there's something compelling about the idea of a Smalltalk (or Lisp) OS running on bare hardware, where everything runs in a single address space. I've been thinking about this for a few years, but I haven't had time to pursue these ideas. Some ideas from the 1994 paper "Sharing and Protection in a Single-Address-Space Operating System" (https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~levy/opal.pdf) could be applicable to add some security to a Smalltalk OS.
Hence why I am already happy with half filled cup, when considering the existence of platforms like ChromeOS, Android, Meadow, Micro/CircuitPython, or Inferno, that seldom gets love from Plan 9 folks.
It isn't the full thing, but apparently it is very hard to get mainstream interest in such approaches.
Naturally this is not the same as using Smalltalk, or the other three Xerox PARC siblings, only partially.
There were some efforts to run Squeak on the Raspberry PI I think, but eventually they runned out of steam.
Squeak runs just fine on Linux computers (among many OSes) including the Raspberry Pi.
The project you linked to recreated the original Xerox Smalltalk-80 on the Pi. It has a rather limited scope so I don't know if they ran out of steam or simply reached the end.
Yes, but OP's point was about bare metal deployments, not on top of an existing OS, there are plenty of Smalltalks doing that already, all of the surviving ones.
> but I will never get used to using a graphical VM and UI to develop ordinary programs.
I guess that by "ordinary programs" you mean command-line TUI programs.
Being able to explore and inspect helps whether you are writing GUI or TUI.
When you write Smalltalk code with a Smalltalk IDE, your actions have an implicit context. If you write Smalltalk code with a plain text editor, you must provide that missing context. Something like the fileOut format —
!BenchmarksGame class methodsFor: 'initialize-release'!
Last time I tried that project I got into the object browser and from there got lost, lacking context about what objects I needed and what methods to call on them. The browser will show you everything but you have to know what you want and where to go to find it.
I was always amazed that the smalltalk environment looks like a complete computer control - a paradise for a programmer and a hacker, and a creator. It's surprising that it didn't take off. Probably too much openness reflects the internal openness of the smalltalk creator to the world, but the outside world, unfortunately, did not reciprocate. Especially if we pay attention to Apple's success with completely closed devices, suitable only for content consumption.
Smalltalk as platform did take off, that is why the famous GoF book uses Smalltalk and C++, even though many think Java is somehow on a book that predates it for about three years.
All the IBM's Visual Age line of IDEs were written in Smalltalk, and in a way it was the ".NET" of OS/2.
SOM (OS/2 COM) supported it natively, and one biggest difference to COM is that it supports meta-classes and proper inheritance, language agnostic.
What made Smalltalk lose industry mindshare was exactly Java.
When it came out, some major vendors, like IBM, pivoted all the way into Java, leaving Smalltalk behind.
It is no accident that Eclipse was designed by some of the GoF authors, and it is initially a rewrite of Visual Age underlying platform from Smalltalk to Java.
Eclipse even to this day has a Smalltalk like code browser.
It wasn't only the IDEs, some famous Java libraries, like JUnit, started their life as Smalltalk libraries.
Now as full OS, yes that never really took off.
Note not all Smalltalk vendors switched to Java, that is why Dolphin and Cincom Smalltalk are still around.
And as you hint at C# later and honestly it sometimes feels like the Unity game IDE took up the throne of Smalltalk with it's Smalltalk derived language and it's interactive IDE. What do you think?
Cincom only acquired the VisualWorks Smalltalk software after ParcPlace had unsuccessfully rebranded as ObjectShare in response to the emergence of free as in beer Java.
And when you use that narrow definition you have to remember that all those apps were made on Apple devices.
A broader definition of content would include things you read, listen to, or watch and lots of writers, musicians, and film makers do a lot of their work on Apple hardware.
The suitable only for content consumption claim just doesn’t hold up.
My first encounter with ST was at a Macintosh event at college in ‘85.
And there was a fellow there with a Mac Plus, and he had the Apple ST image running on it.
The Apple ST image was a descendant of the original Xerox image. This is the same image that became Squeak. Quite the heritage.
The first the the guy showed me was how easy it was to change the width of the scroll bar. A simple tweak and, voila, the scroll bar changed. This worked particularly well because in the original UI, the scroll bar was a popup (unlike most are today).
It was a dynamic demo to be sure to get that kind of reactivity to development. Made an impression to be sure.
I think that or something like it was a rite of passage in our course using Smalltalk in college (number forgotten). "That couldn't possibly work...Oh, shit."
A cute and up-to-date version of Smalltalk is Cuis [1]. I enjoyed playing around with it and developing small projects, but I will never get used to using a graphical VM and UI to develop ordinary programs. That's too far from the UNIX philosophy, which I respect and follow for good reason. Nevertheless, the curious hacker in me is attracted to the freshness and unconventionalness of Smalltalk as a unique programming experience.
[1] https://cuis.st/
You might be interested in this paper: "Unix, Plan 9 and the Lurking Smalltalk" (https://www.humprog.org/~stephen/research/papers/kell19unix-...)
Cuis Smalltalk and related implementations are rather self-contained systems to the point they seemed walled off from the rest of the system, making it difficult to develop Smalltalk programs using external tools.
However, there's something compelling about the idea of a Smalltalk (or Lisp) OS running on bare hardware, where everything runs in a single address space. I've been thinking about this for a few years, but I haven't had time to pursue these ideas. Some ideas from the 1994 paper "Sharing and Protection in a Single-Address-Space Operating System" (https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~levy/opal.pdf) could be applicable to add some security to a Smalltalk OS.
Hence why I am already happy with half filled cup, when considering the existence of platforms like ChromeOS, Android, Meadow, Micro/CircuitPython, or Inferno, that seldom gets love from Plan 9 folks.
It isn't the full thing, but apparently it is very hard to get mainstream interest in such approaches.
Naturally this is not the same as using Smalltalk, or the other three Xerox PARC siblings, only partially.
There were some efforts to run Squeak on the Raspberry PI I think, but eventually they runned out of steam.
https://hackaday.com/2020/07/12/making-smalltalk-on-a-raspbe...
Squeak runs just fine on Linux computers (among many OSes) including the Raspberry Pi.
The project you linked to recreated the original Xerox Smalltalk-80 on the Pi. It has a rather limited scope so I don't know if they ran out of steam or simply reached the end.
Yes, but OP's point was about bare metal deployments, not on top of an existing OS, there are plenty of Smalltalks doing that already, all of the surviving ones.
> but I will never get used to using a graphical VM and UI to develop ordinary programs.
I guess that by "ordinary programs" you mean command-line TUI programs.
Being able to explore and inspect helps whether you are writing GUI or TUI.
When you write Smalltalk code with a Smalltalk IDE, your actions have an implicit context. If you write Smalltalk code with a plain text editor, you must provide that missing context. Something like the fileOut format —
https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...Last time I tried that project I got into the object browser and from there got lost, lacking context about what objects I needed and what methods to call on them. The browser will show you everything but you have to know what you want and where to go to find it.
Goldberg (1984) Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/TheInteractiveProg...
Goldberg & Robson (1983) Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementataion http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/BlueBook/Bluebook....
I was always amazed that the smalltalk environment looks like a complete computer control - a paradise for a programmer and a hacker, and a creator. It's surprising that it didn't take off. Probably too much openness reflects the internal openness of the smalltalk creator to the world, but the outside world, unfortunately, did not reciprocate. Especially if we pay attention to Apple's success with completely closed devices, suitable only for content consumption.
Smalltalk as platform did take off, that is why the famous GoF book uses Smalltalk and C++, even though many think Java is somehow on a book that predates it for about three years.
All the IBM's Visual Age line of IDEs were written in Smalltalk, and in a way it was the ".NET" of OS/2.
SOM (OS/2 COM) supported it natively, and one biggest difference to COM is that it supports meta-classes and proper inheritance, language agnostic.
What made Smalltalk lose industry mindshare was exactly Java.
When it came out, some major vendors, like IBM, pivoted all the way into Java, leaving Smalltalk behind.
It is no accident that Eclipse was designed by some of the GoF authors, and it is initially a rewrite of Visual Age underlying platform from Smalltalk to Java.
Eclipse even to this day has a Smalltalk like code browser.
It wasn't only the IDEs, some famous Java libraries, like JUnit, started their life as Smalltalk libraries.
Now as full OS, yes that never really took off.
Note not all Smalltalk vendors switched to Java, that is why Dolphin and Cincom Smalltalk are still around.
And as you hint at C# later and honestly it sometimes feels like the Unity game IDE took up the throne of Smalltalk with it's Smalltalk derived language and it's interactive IDE. What do you think?
> not all Smalltalk vendors switched to Java
Cincom only acquired the VisualWorks Smalltalk software after ParcPlace had unsuccessfully rebranded as ObjectShare in response to the emergence of free as in beer Java.
Suitable only for content consumption - only if you define content narrowly as software/apps.
And when you use that narrow definition you have to remember that all those apps were made on Apple devices.
A broader definition of content would include things you read, listen to, or watch and lots of writers, musicians, and film makers do a lot of their work on Apple hardware.
The suitable only for content consumption claim just doesn’t hold up.
A demonstration of on-the-fly modification of GUI internals in Smalltalk-78: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEz08IlcNMg
My first encounter with ST was at a Macintosh event at college in ‘85.
And there was a fellow there with a Mac Plus, and he had the Apple ST image running on it.
The Apple ST image was a descendant of the original Xerox image. This is the same image that became Squeak. Quite the heritage.
The first the the guy showed me was how easy it was to change the width of the scroll bar. A simple tweak and, voila, the scroll bar changed. This worked particularly well because in the original UI, the scroll bar was a popup (unlike most are today).
It was a dynamic demo to be sure to get that kind of reactivity to development. Made an impression to be sure.
I once crashed Squeak by telling it that true:=false
I think that or something like it was a rite of passage in our course using Smalltalk in college (number forgotten). "That couldn't possibly work...Oh, shit."
That doesn't happen with Dolphin DPRO.
Optimized, like #ifTrue:ifFalse:
A faster booting version (without Lively Kernel IDE): https://codefrau.github.io/Smalltalk78/
The whole Smalltalk zoo is interesting:
https://smalltalkzoo.thechm.org
I expected the Note Taker to have a much smaller screen. This is pretty unbelievable for a portable back then.
It had a 7 inch CRT with 640x480 resolution.
Very unexpected typeface for 1979 year. Thanks for sharing.
It’s definitely very unique and proves that the Macintosh wasn’t the first computer with nice typography ;)
Is it possible to download this for offline use? Or to view the source code for it?
"If you change the JavaScript code of the VM, it will immediately affect other users of this webpage. Please use responsibly."
LOL
I looked left and right but it doesn't say anywhere what software is it using to run a smalltalk environment in the browser.
I played with (Pharo) Smalltalk a bit in the past, it'd be nice to try it again in the browser.
Perhaps Lively Kernel?
https://www.lively-kernel.org/presentations/