Trygve Reenskaug wrote on Tue, 13 Oct 2020 10:37:38 +0200
> How I wish that the Smalltalk world had at least one good
> implementation (distinct implementation rather than dialect.)
> of ST80. Squeak is, of course, a moving target that leaves a
> trail of bit rotting software in darkness behind it. (sigh)

There have actually been two new virtual machines developed for
Smalltalk-80 in the past year or so. Both are hobby projects, though
with todays very fast computers even such can be very usable. I don't
know the legality of using the old Xerox image, however.

The image is museum quality: the exact bits it had in the early 1980s.
But that is just because nobody is actually using it. For the
Smalltalk-78 restoration project, for example, they started fixing and
improving stuff and that is what Alan demoed. So I doubt that a
Smalltalk-80 that a group actually used would change any less than
Squeak does.

There is always the option of using older Squeaks. I am typing this in
Squeak 4.1 and for a project I wanted a very small image for I am using
Squeak 2.2. It isn't always easy to find a virtual machine that will run
on current operating systems and that can accept such old images. And
obviously I have to do without more than two decades of bug fixes, but
that is a price I am willing to pay.

Pharo changes a lot more than Squeak does (the fork was so it could do
so), but what about Cuis? I know its goal is simplicity and not
historical stability but my impression is that you get a bit of that as
well.

-- Jecel

https://github.com/dbanay/Smalltalk

https://github.com/rochus-keller/Smalltalk