Z:gnu-www-ja-rms-lisp--1fcf57-At the time, you could make a/en

At the time, you could make a computer that was about the same price range as other computers that weren't meant for Lisp, except that it would run Lisp much faster than they would, and with full type checking in every operation as well. Ordinary computers typically forced you to choose between execution speed and good typechecking. So yes, you could have a Lisp compiler and run your programs fast, but when they tried to take car of a number, it got nonsensical results and eventually crashed at some point.