Ask HN: A new Lisp machine on mobile cpu

5 points·tmaly··5 comments

I was reading over a business week article posted on here regarding the current tech bubble. It got me thinking about what would be the next wave after the current social media wave passed. What about something like a ARM like mobile platform that was targeted at running Lisp natively but with an API in the same sense as android is an API to the mobile platform. Could this be the next wave riding on all the DIY people?

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My understanding (disclaimer: I'm often wrong) is that the Arduino toolchain all goes through gcc, at which point getting "lispduino" working as a first demo/prototype isn't out of the realms of possibility - http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9950 - $29.95 in quantities of 1, you wouldn't even need to apply to YC for funding...

That would indeed be fun to develop for, but the long tail isn't much of a target market. Look at bug labs or sparkfun - they successfully target the hackers/makers, but a single device or family of devices won't ever be the next wave.

Have you seen GreenArrays (http://www.greenarraychips.com/)? They produce massively parallel chips that run arrayForth natively. Targeting the cheap supercomputing market.

"Cool Technology" is not a business model.

In this case I agree with you, but in general not.

Mits altair, The Apple I? Cool technology. ICQ? Just for kids. Automobiles - toys only for the rich.

Lots of neato stuff grow up to be serious business. It's usually best not to bet against finding a useful purpose.

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