The architecture of symbolic computers

What Hacker News says

1. eggyJun 2026
   A great tech book on symbolic computers in general and Lisp machines, is Peter Kogge's 1991, "The Architecture of Symbolic Computers". I believe new efforts by people like Yann LeCun will counter the "LLMs or bust" monoculture along with SOC/ASICs, in-memory compute, neuromorphic chips, dataflow, optical/analog hybrids , etc. that will bring a healthy correction or alternatives to the Von Neumann architecture.
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2. qubexMay 2023
   The Architecture of Symbolic Computers is one of my favourite computer science texts ever.
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3. eggySep 2022
   1. Amiga Assembly Language Programming (1987) - The book that tore me away from the Commodore BASIC I learned on my PET 2001 in 1978.

   2. The Architecture of Symbolic Computers - (1991) - I didn't read this until the 2000s, but boy, what a book! It's about Lisp and Lisp Machines, but it covers everything that is still applicable to computers. A great example of a dense, readable textbook compared to all the fluff written nowadays with too many pictures and repeated explanations.

   3. The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition - you know what I am talking about!

   4. Genetic Programming (1992)- John Koza - Really got me into early machine learning and more into LISP!

   5. The Handbook of Neuroevolution Through Erlang (2013) - Gene Sher - Great intro to ANNs in general, and Erlang even if you don't program in Erlang or want to!

   Honorable mentions:

   A. The Book of Shen - Mark Tarver - It's a LISP, but the history of computing and Lambda Calculus is nice, and Shen is an amazing language.

   B. Building High Integrity Applications with SPARK 1st Edition - Great intro to SPARK, and Ada subset, used in the book for the CubeSAT program at VTC (Vermont Technical College).

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4. larveAug 2022
   My list:

   - The Plenitude - Rich Gold

   Not a computing book with code but it taught me a lot about what can be done with computers, and that they are marvelous machines.

   - Architecture of Symbolic Computers - Kogge

   An ode to what could have been if RISC and x86 hadn't steamrolled the landscape.

   - Thinking Forth - Leo Brodie

   Forth is wild, this book is wild, it's really a different world. After multiple attempts over 25 years, I'm giving it another go this year and this time it is actually clicking.

   - Malicious Cryptography: Exposing Cryptovirology - Adam Young, Moti Yung

   This is way out of my league in terms of cryptography, but this fascinated me early in my career, and led me to implement one or the other algorithm. Very prescient in many ways.

   - Patterns of Software - Richard Gabriel

   Not directly about computing, but I got a lot of deep insights from this book. It also brought me to the next book:

   - Notes on the synthesis of form - Christopher Alexander

   This is not a computing book per se, but it goes to the core of system architecture. Even in its original field, this book is kind of wild.

   - All Mathematica Guidebooks - Michael Trott

   Mathematica is wild, these books are wild, they are old but still oh so inspiring.

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5. eatonphilNov 2021
   Awesome! Specifically not on my list already there's: Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming; Smalltalk-80: The language and its implementation; The Architecture of Symbolic Computers and Project Oberon: The design of an operating system and compiler.

   This reminds me Niklaus Wirth's Compiler Construction probably belongs in this thread.

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6. bordercasesFeb 2020
   "The Architecture of Symbolic Computers" by Kogge comes close.
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