Using SBCL and McCLIM I wrote an Interlisp tool in modern Common Lisp with a CLIM GUI. That's what happens when one is having too much fun with Lisp.
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/an-interlisp-file-viewer-in-common-lisp
#Interlisp
👆 The 1984 episode of Computer Chronicles on Artificial Intelligence also featured a demonstration of Dipmeter Advisor, an oil drilling expert system for Interlisp-D.
The 1984 Artificial Intelligence episode of the Computer Chronicles TV show, hosted by the late Stewart Cheifet, featured demonstrations of some Interlisp applications: the ONCOCIN expert system for medical consultation and the KEE Knowledge Engineering Environment expert system shell.
In Interlisp PUSH and POP manipulate stacks represented as lists and work like the corresponding Common Lisp macros, but PUSH swaps the order of the arguments.
Published in 1978, this paper by Erik Sandewall is one of the best introductions to the Interlisp environment and development style. It doesn't cover the graphical Interlisp-D system but the material still applies to Medley Interlisp.
On November 16, 2023 Steve Kaisler gave the talk “Software Archaeology: The Medley Interlisp Modernisation Project” at a London event of the Computer Conservation Society.
The 1986 article "Xerox proves it moves ideas into the market" discussed the inability of Xerox to turn innovations into products. It also explained why the company was better positioned than other vendors for delivering low-cost AI solutions and how it was improving at bringing its innovations to the market:
Brian Boyle, president of Novon Research in San Francisco, says that Xerox used to practically give their technology away by putting it into the public domain, but he now contends that the company appears to be redirecting its thinking, citing the company's OEM strategy with the 1185 and 1186 as an example.
https://bitsavers.org/magazines/Mini-Micro_Systems/198603.pdf#page=35
The Software Preservation Group at the Computer History Museum compiled a list and bibliography of Interlisp implementations. Did you know that Interlisp also ran on IBM 360/370 mainframes?
https://softwarepreservation.computerhistory.org/LISP/interlisp_family.html
In 1965 Peter Deutsch wrote a structure editor for LISP 1.5 which Daniel Bobrow and Warren Teitelman extended and ported to BBN Lisp. In 1969 it was already in use at BBN and eventually became the Interlisp structure editor.
This is the 1967 preliminary guide to Deutsch's editor.
https://softwarepreservation.computerhistory.org/LISP/bbnlisp/W-21_LISP_Editor_Apr67.pdf
A demonstration of defining a Lisp function with the SEdit structure editor of an old version of Medley Interlisp.
This draft paper dated 1979, apparently never published, gave an historical overview of early programming languages for AI.
The document helps make sense of names like POPLER and QLISP. What's interesting is high level languages such as PLANNER and CONNIVER saw initial interest but little actual use.
https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:vg077ps3762/vg077ps3762.pdf
@bbatsov There's a lot in this essay that is at best dubious. It says that
"Smalltalk systems went beyond REPL interaction and embraced image-based development"
#Lisp systems had `sysout` and `sysin` to provide image based development, and I believe that this was the default method of development in #Interlisp before the development of #Smalltalk. Indeed, given that Smalltalk was also developed at Xerox PARC, it's inevitable that there would be cross fertilisation.
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@interlisp/115762510978869082
There are different ways of defining Interlisp macros depending on the type of behavior such as inlining, substitution (similar to C macros), or computation (similar to defmacro of Common Lisp) like in the screenshot.
An example of one way of defining, expanding, and calling an Interlisp macro similar to WHEN of Common Lisp. Macro definitions are represented by lists stored on the property list of a symbol. Here ARGS is bound to the CDR of the calling form.
Spy is the statistical profiler of Medley Interlisp. The tool periodically interrupts the running program to sample the functions in the current call stack and displays the data.
Evaluate (INSPECTCODE 'FN), where FN is an Interlisp function name, to disassemble the compiled function and see the opcodes of Maiko, the Medley Interlisp virtual machine. This example also shows the corresponding source of the function.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ7E0B68TRo
Pretty interesting.
Larry Masinter talking about his experience in early lisp and internet protocols
like #interlisp #commonlisp and #gopher.
Pretty interesting.
Larry Masinter talking about his experience in early lisp and internet protocols
like #interlisp #commonlisp and #gopher.
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@interlisp/115711583068137949
Drop what you're doing and listen to @masinter Larry Masinter talk about computing history and lore. He tells first hand stories on the early web, Gopher, Hypertext Coffee Pot Control Protocol, mailto:, and a whole lot more including Interlisp.
https://netstack.fm/#episode-17
@Jayhoffmann may be interested.
Episode 17 of the Netstack.FM podcast features an interview with @masinter Larry Masinter on Interlisp and the Medley Interlisp project, the Xerox PARC environment, the early history of the web, standards and protocols, and more.
https://netstack.fm/#episode-17
The canonical capitalization of Interlisp is "Interlisp" or "INTERLISP". InterLisp is much less common in the documentation of and literature on the system.
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