@screwlisp Thought you would be interested in this.
On the ex-Symbolics employees mailing list somebody posted a link to a "history of the Lisp machine".
https://youtu.be/sV7C6Ezl35A?si=S4uh4-JXKC2_7lOR
It's kind of long and so I didn't watch the whole thing, but just skipped around a little bit. Somebody else who did watch it said,
'Fascinating exposition. Given his mispronunciations of "CADR" and "Macsyma", it's clear that he wasn't in the room where it happened, nor spoke to anyone who was. But I can't quarrel with his research or cause-and-effect analysis of both the industry as a whole and Symbolics in particular.'
![A newspaper clipping with a photo of Russel Noftsker that says:
AI superstar plunges to earth
Knowledge-based expert systems delivered on symbolic processing machines are "a trend that I'd say is unstoppable at this point."
Russel Noftsker
Chairman, Symbolics, Inc.
February 1986
"I don't want to see the company fail. I don't want to see any more employees lose their jobs."
Noftsker
February 1988
BY CLINTON WILDER
and STANLEY GIBSON
CW STAFF
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Like Icarus, Symbolics, Inc. thought there was no limit to how high... [the picture cuts off]
Its technology was the envy of that sexy new industry, artificial intelligence, and its rapid climb to the $100 million revenue level in 1986 earned it acclaim as "a stock market superstar."
Now mired in red ink and leaderless -- its founders having been eased out of control -- the firm stands as a classic case of missed opportunities, overreaching ambition and market insensitivity.
"Success can be seductive," said Barbara Isgur, a technology analyst with D. H. Brown Associates in Tarrytown, N.Y.
"It's hard to know when to turn the corner or change direction. I can't think of a company that's been able to do that without a lot of pain," Isgur said.
Symbolics -- which sprang up at the forefront of an indus-[the picture cuts off]](https://files.mastodon.social/cache/media_attachments/files/114/235/985/477/768/371/original/660db7f63ec0d44e.png)
