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SYMBOLICS S-PACKAGES 3D GRAPHICS AND ANIMATION DEMO

Red Martian · 14.2K views · 2013-08-08 · 29:16

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Overview

A demo of the Symbolics Graphics Division's S-Packages, a Lisp-based 3D color graphics and animation system from the 1980s. It was later used in developing for the Nintendo 64.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as a startling example of how advanced Lisp machine interactive graphics were, often in Lisp and REPL-driven development discussions.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2014–2026

Topics

History of computingComputer graphics & renderingFunctional programming
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symbolicslisp3d animationretrocomputings-packages

What people said

loosetypes · 2018-10 · Strong recommendation

For whatever reason I really enjoyed the Symbolics graphics and animations demo[0] linked in the article. I was born in the 90s and have constantly heard the narrative that technological progress is getting faster and faster, and that we're currently at the forefront. And then I see something like this. They had basically photoshop before I was even alive!? [0] [VIDEO]

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hcarvalhoalves · 2024-10 · Recommendation

See these demos for the kinds of interactive systems LISP enabled back in the day: [LINK] [VIDEO] It makes working on VSCode today look like banging rocks together, let alone 30 years ago.

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mepian · 2022-04 · Recommendation

I'm glad the middle screen is explained, Symbolics always gets overshadowed by SGI. If you want to see it in action, watch this: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Red Martian, played through YouTube.

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