I have set everything up according to the instructions above. I’ve also tried the two other instructions online that I could find, but the result is the same. After executing the genera binary, genera gets through “icachebase 0×7f8320a50000, endicache 0×7f8321650000″ then just repeatedly spits out “No protocol specified” until I kill it with signal 9.

I am at a total loss as to what is happening. Does anyone know?

Thank you,
Duncan Townsend

It isn’t necessary to change the system date to

I am currently stuck trying to save the world. Like others who’ve posted above, I can write
files over NFS to my host machine from the virtual LispM, but when I do a Save World (after
doing a Reset Network, as directed), what happens is that I am first asked to approve the herald
and the disk-label world title, then the LispM prints out
Running BEFORE-COLD initializations …
Logging out …
New estimated size is 44556 blocks.
System Shutdown …
then it hangs, having presumably shut down.

So I’m stuck.
-Arthur

I’m running a pretty generic Ubuntu Intrepid distro. My NFS /etc/exports line is
/ 10.0.0.2(rw,all_squash,anonuid=1003,anongid=1003,sync,no_subtree_check)
where 1003 is the uid/gid of a “lispm” user I created; my whole lispm install is owned by
this user on the host machine.

I have install into PC with CPU Pentimun HT ( EM64 flag active for 64Bit Engine) and 2 Gbyte Of Ram with Nvidea 8400, Ubuntu 8.04/64/AMD now i have apply all custom install see into http://labs.aezenix.com/lispm/index.php?title=VLM_On_Linux now Crash ( i have transfert copy into http://mcmax.blogspot.com/2009/01/virtual-lisp-machine-on-linux-emulator.html ) and i have start my Virtual lispmachine. The problem is fixed IP 10.0.0.x without configuration file for change it but source of emulator is’nt available or i no have see reference link on web. But i have unlink this from my network 10.x.x.x/8. and i have find time/date crash of application.
This LispEngine have problem with Millenium Bug ( patch find into old Symbolics web Site http://webarchive.org ) and required this procedure: return timer of your system back to 31-12-1999 Start Emulator now apply the lisp patch, save image and go out emulator, insert correct date and restart emulator with patch. For network now i not have info. Thanks and regards to all

Recognizing symbolics function and modifier keys on my keyboard was not totally obvious. The following notes may help. Actually I have an AZERTY keyboard, this is probably irrelevant. I believe that these notes can be used by people with QUERTY keyboards as well.

1) Symbolics Function keys

(esc, ESCAPE)

(fn f1, SELECT)
(fn f2, NETWORK)
(fn f3, FUNCTION)
(fn f4, SUSPEND)
(fn f5, RESUME)
(fn f6, ABORT)
(fn f7, SUPER) ; actually not a function key but a modfier key
(fn f8, HYPER) ; actually not a function key but a modfier key
(fn f9, line to top ?)
(fn f10, conflict because used by expose OSX but shift-fn-f10 sometimes work)
(fn f11, conflict because used by expose OSX)
(fn f12, HELP)

(fn arrowdown, SCROLL)
(fn arrowup, META SCROLL) or (alt arrowup, META SCROLL)

(fn arrowleft) goes to beginning of file with “point pushed ”
(fn arrowright, END)

(delete, BACKSPACE)
(fn delete, RUBOUT)
(return, LINE)

(tab, TAB)

2) Character keys

Nothing special to be noticed, besides the following:
The key @ # and are permuted (as with all Ubuntu AZERTY keyboards, this seems to be a Ubuntu bug).

Useful missing keys that I did not find: vertical slash, backslash, braces and square braces, identity sign (triple equal).

3) Modifier keys

(alt, META) but sometimes it is (cmd, META)
(shift, SHIFT)
(ctrl, CONTROL)
(fn f7, SUPER)
(fn f8, HYPER)

Missing keys (at least I did not find them !):

REFRESH (but shift fn-f10 sometimes work), CLEAR INPUT, PAGE, COMPLETE, SYMBOL.
CAPS LOCK does not work.

4) Mouse and click

(click, LEFT CLICK)

(cmd click, RIGHT CLICK). I prefer to use double tap (two fingers) on the new MacBook Pro trackpad.

I did not find MIDDLE CLICK. This is a nuisance.

5) Useful things to do

Show Herald :detailed
(it is useful to type the keyword :detailed since the loaded world contains more systems that those listed by the simple “Show Herald” command)

Selecting activities (useful examples);

SELECT HELP meaning fn-f1 fn-f12
SELECT L meaning fn-f1 L
SELECT D meaning fn-f1 D
SELECT E meaning fn-f1 E
SELECT P meaning fn-f1 P
SELECT = meaning fn-f1 =

From Listener type: “Select Activity Namespace Editor”
may be useful if you want to add hosts, printers etc

Very basic emacs commands (actually zmacs) : using such command is an absolute necessity in Genera!

c-A
c-E
c-K

c-P
c-N
c-B
c-F

from the editor (SELECT E): c-X-c-S , c-X-c-W, etc

FUNCTION-B (meaning fn-f3 B) buries a window,
FUNCTION S (meaning fn-f3 S) selects the previous window,
FUNCTION HELP (meaning fn-f3 fn-f12) gives a useful list

ESCAPE gives input history
c-ESCAPE gives kill history

Use SPACE for command completion. Use also HELP (fn f12) and ctrl shift /

6) Unrelated remarks

Communication with the Ubuntu host works fine. Select activity terminal by SELECT T (which is fn-f1 T on this keyboard) then type “Connect UbuntuHost” , the result is a telnet connection to your (Ubuntu) host. From there you can do for instance an “ssh machost” (your local macbook) or anything else.

Evaluating of compiling lisp code works perfectly. Try for instance ctrl-shift-E to evaluate a form in the editor.

Loading a system works fine (I could load for instance Joshua by Load System Joshua) but the problem is that I did not find the square brace and the identity sign (triple equal) on the keyboard, making difficult the writing of predicates! Those characters appear in the list produced by the command “Show Font Symbol12″ for instance, the display is usually mouse-sensitive, but in the case of the Fonts, it is not. At least not mine. Moreover the activity Font Editor does not seem to exist in this version.

7) The basics

It takes some time to get used to the many function and modifier keys of genera. The minimum requirements, to get started with the system are, I think:

The basic emacs command used to move the cursor, to copy or yank a command. They work everywhere.

The fn delete combination (RUBOUT).

The SELECT, ABORT and HELP keys (translated as fn-f1, fn-f6 and fn-f12) and the END key (translated as fn rightarrow).

The basic activities: Listener, Editor and Document Examiner (SELECT L, E or D).

8) In case of trouble

it is usually enough to press ABORT (ie fn-f6) to exit from error. If this does not work, try META-ABORT (ie alt-fn-f6) or CONTROL-META-ABORT (ie ctrl-alt-fn-f6). If this does not work, try FUNCTION 0 S (remember that FUNCTION on MacBook keyboard is fn-f3) and abort from there. If everything remains frozen, you can go to the cold load stream (its window appears at the bottom of the genera window), and try to do something but be warned that Command Processor commands do not work there and that the given keyboard equivalents do not work either. The modifier key here is obtained with CONTROL-META; so that “s-A” for instance should be typed “ctrl-alt A” on the macintosh keyboard.
When the state is totally stuck, and after trying all of the above and more, the only way out seems to be of closing the Genera and the Cold Load Stream windows. This is a bit rough but I did not find a smooth way of halting the machine. Then one is back to Ubuntu. One can then restart Genera.

9) My unsolved problems.

Very, very, very often I get errors of the type:
“trap: the first argument of the fast-aref-1 instruction -2390367824 was not a fixnum”
I do not know where they come from. Most of the time I get rid of the error window with a simple Abort.

I have sometimes network problems with restarting genera after a crash. Error is
“genera: Unable to /dev/net/tun for VLM network interface #0″
In those cases I have to restart Ubuntu (and sometimes VirtualBox).

Sometimes the Genera window frozes at the very beginning, with the message “…Local Host is Cold Booted”, but the cold boot process never ends. In those cases I open the genera cold load window (on the bottom of the screen) and type ctrl-alt-F. Usually this fixes the problem.

I did not manage to save a world (maybe a problem of unix permissions..)

The system works fine. Almost.
What I really miss : the Symbol key, the middle click, the square and curly braces, the pipe and backslash symbols, the triple equal sign, the possibility of saving a world.
The main nuisance is the trap “the first argument of the fast-aref-1 instruction xxx was not a fixnum” because it occurs all the time on my system.

genera: Can’t TUNSETIFF for VLM network interface #0
Device or resource busy

and after that, it seems to hang. 10.0.0.1 is available on an interface, and I’ve defined

genera.network: 10.0.0.2; mask=255.255.255.0; gateway=10.0.0.1

in the .VLM file. Um, how to proceed?