PARC CSL Technical Report Digest: 1973-1990

[Paolo Amoroso]

Bitsavers posted a new PARC document, CSL-91 Computer Science Laboratory Technical Report Digest: 1973-1990, which provides the full list of CSL reports across most of the history of Interlisp.

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Paolo Amoroso | Blog | Mastodon

[Nick Briggs]

You couldn't be expected to know this apriori -- but Interlisp was never in CSL, so you won't find much Lisp related in the CSL digest.

There were quite a few names for the lab which was home to Interlisp over the period I was there (Intelligent Systems Lab, System Sciences Lab, ...)

There's a listing of the Blue & Whites in https://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Xerox_PARC_Blue_and_White_Series_Reports_1973-_May90.pdf but I don't recall a digest of the reports being published for most (any?) of the labs other than CSL.

-- Nick

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[Ron Kaplan]

I'm not sure about the name changes from Altolisp to Interlisp and Interlisp-D, but the development was definitely split betwen SSL and CSL at least up until about 1980, or whenever the JSB/Taylor schism happened.  Taylor nominally made me the "manager" of the CSL side during at least some of that period--he probably hoped I would be more malleable than some others.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lispcore/AE003FE0-0725-4E0F-9FA5-841BC4869233%40gmail.com.

[Larry Masinter]

I was in CSL as a kind of intern from 1973 until 1980 working primarily on Interlisp.

I remember seeing a CSL org chart from that period which had me listed as "other" because they hadn't invented the "intern" category.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lispcore/EFD1E3D2-BBBA-4932-BEDE-102B8DC45F03%40post.harvard.edu.

[Nick Briggs]

Yeah, I should have said not from 1984 onwards.

-- Nick

[Paul McJones]

Interestingly, I was working on a collection of mentions of LISP activities taken from CSL Dealer meetings between 1972 and 1974 when you made your comment. It took me a while to find and retype these from a 105-page scanned document. Enjoy!

Paul

—— extracted from Dealer minutes in Bob Taylor’s archibes at Stanford and John Shoch’s archives.

Dealer August 8 , 1972

There will be a meeting at 4:00 Friday, August 11 to discuss the possibility hiring of Ron Kaplan, xxx, and yyy. 

Dealer November 6, 1972

Warren Teiltelman reported that LISP manual updates are now available from Janet Farness.

Dealer June 5, 1973

Warren chatted a bit about his philosophy for LISP and how he felt that LISP (and CLISP - for Conversational LISP) is becoming an existence proof

for the consciousness-raising of system designers; namely, that systems should be "forgiving" of errors and should have the ability to let people

experiment with their files by being able to undo recent edits.

Dealer June 19, 1973

Warren Teitelman said that LISP negotiations with BBN are currently centered on coming to agreement about a name for LISP (since “BBN LISP” is

no longer appropriate). Warren says that both the LISP system and the manual are progressing nicely.

Dealer June 26, 1973

Warren Teitelman: The LISP system (nee "BBN-LISP") is now officially called "INTERLISP" - suggestions for names are no longer welcome. “INTERLISP” connotes "interactive" and "international" (there is a version running at Uppsala). An INTERLISP User's Group was defined to be in existence consisting of Warren and Alice Hartley. By putting LISP in the public domain via a User's Group, no company can pirate the software and sell it.

Peter Deutsch: The Nova implementation of INTERLISP is continuing; the program is almost doing arithmetic.

Dealer July 3, 1973

LISP:

(1) A new LISP, “LISP” is up.

(2) Documentation is progressing.

(3) Warren Teitelaan expruaed his receptiveness to requests for developing an “Introduction to LISP" course.

Dealer July 10, 1973

LISP: There is now a serious LISP drum space crunch. Warren Teitelman has been designing INTERLISP on the assumption that the new LISP system (brought up by BBN last week) would provide more space. Such is not the case, however, and the result is that some of Warren's programs will not fit into the new LISP. (Warren is secretly pleased that what were thought to be pleasant frills have become “essential" now that they can't be used.)

BBN is looking at the problem. Meanwhile Warren hasloaded various configurations which will fit into the present aystem.

Willie Sue Haugeland's work on writing LISP for the NOVA via BCPL is progressing, programs can now be run. Target date for completion is September.

Dealer July 17, 1973

LISP: New system up at SRI, BBN and PRC. Manual completion is hopefully near.

Dealer July 24, 1973

INTERLISP: The manual (all 807 pages of it) is in its “final" editing phase. This means that Suzan Jerome will be occupied with the manual for another 2-4 weeks, those in her group who need secretarial support in the interim should speak to Suzan and/or Adrienne about their needs.

Dealer July 31, 1973

INTERLISP is progressing. BBN has given a “reasonable" write-up on the change of LISP to INTERLISP. LISP classes are still being considered. (Warren Teitelman)

Dealer August 7, 1973

Bob Taylor said a new ARPA proposal is being worked out currently. It will focus on 1) LISP-related activities under Warren, and 2) a conglomerate of other individual activities at PARC.

Dealer August 28, 1973

The Lighhill  Tape will be shown in DEALER in two weeks—September 11—sponsored by Warren Teitelman. Warren and others gave some background on Lighthill in reference to its controversiality. Written copies of the Report are available at PARC (Bob Sproul). The videotape is approximately one hour and 20 minutes long.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthill_report

http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/inf/literature/reports/lighthill_report/p001.htm

Part 1·2·3·4·5·6

Dealer October 2, 1973

Larry Masinter gave a presentation of the two new features he developed for LISP this summer--Record feature and Pattern Matching feature. Both

features have been implemented in LISP and documentation is available.

Dealer October 30, 1973

Alice Hartley of BBN will be visiting PARC next week. She will bring with her a new version of LISP.

A new version of LISP is now available on MAXC. (Warren Teitelman)

Dealer January 9, 1974

Bob Sproull complemented the efforts of several people involved with the completion efforts of the Interlisp document: Suzan Jerome, Peter Deutsch, Mat Heiler (sp?), Larry Tessler and Warren Teitelman.

Dealer February 19, 1974

DEALER was given by Warren Teitelman and J Moore on BARD: the simulation of Poet in Lisp. [What were Poet and BARD?]

Dealer February 25, 1974

INTERLISP Manual is here (12 copies). More to come.

Dealer March 13, 1974

Poter Deutsch announced that he and Wlllie Sue have successfully run, on a Nova, a small progran of the same sort that will eventually be executed by the Alto Lisp microcode.

Dealer March 26, 1974

7. Teitelman reported on his recent trip. He said he reopened the lines of communication with BBN. He set up a 2-hour technical meeting with MIT and BBN Lispers and opened up a new 3-way interchange of info on the respective Lisp systems of Project MAC, BBN and Parc. Warren said MAC Lisp is more efficient than Interlisp, and he has been holding discussions on the tradeoffs between the various systems and is considering ways to make Interlisp more efficient. Warren also said he has been getting lots of favorable comncnt on the Interlisp manual.

Dealer April 23, 1974

Warren Teitelman reported a new way to shorten the wait time for Bard.

Bob Taylor asked “Wlhy do we have Poet around?" The answer was “because some people know how to use it."

Bob Walker reported that the help system for the Interlisp Manual is almost on line (3 chapters to go yet).

Jerry Elkind inquired if other documents could be used by Walker's help system. Warren Teitelman thought it would probably work. The Jsys manual is on-line. It was suggested as a good problem to give to a summer student.

Ben Wegbreit has been working on a program to analyze programs. This program looks at a Lisp program to see how long it should take, counts all operations and gives a fair idea of what a simple function depends on. It computes the minimum, maximum and mean times as well as variance on the mean.

Dealer June 4, 1974

Peter Deutsch said that Lisp is now running on the Alto (includes compiler but not garbage collector). Tho next step is microcode.

…

Warren talked nbout his trip to Uppsala and to MIT and the state of Interlispat both places. He said that Interlisp is running on a 360 at

Uppsala and that they intend to make it FULLY compatible with our Interlisp.

He also said that overlays are now working in Interlisp and that Walker’s HELPSYS will begin working soon. It will display appropriate sections of the manual in response to user questions.

Warren announcnd that Larry Masintor will start working full time June 18 and will be working on the problems involved in using large data bases with little overhead.

Dealer June 11, 1974

Warren Teitelman will hold a Lisp efficiency class for new Lisp users. Time and place will be announced soon. He requested that new Lisp users

submit copies of Lisp programs they've been running to him, along with preferences for time of meeting.

Dealer July 9, 1974

Warren Teitelman onnounccd a LISP meeting to be held after Dealer. Regular lisp meetings have not. been held in the post, but due to increased use of Interlisp, this meeting was called to discuss both specific and generol chonges which may affect users. Warren is in the process of updating documentation on these changes.

Dealer August 20, 1974

Warren Teitelman talked about the stato of Lisp and said that they are about finished with updating the manual. The new version will be printed with indicators of the changed material. Also a program will exist for printing only the updated portiions.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lispcore/0F48697B-39AD-4DCF-8BE4-BD92107965BF%40gmail.com.

[Nick Briggs]

Fascinating.  I started in 1984 in ISL (I think it was at the time), approximately the JSB era, doing Interlisp based work, and didn't make it down to the CSL end of the building until EDL (Rick Beach's lab) merged with CSL in ... I don't remember which year.  The split of the original CSL was just before my time?

-- Nick

[Paolo Amoroso]

Thanks all, I always wondered where the Interlisp group fit within the PARC organization.

Paul, these notes are extremely interesting for the Interlisp timeline and more. If you publish the material please let us know.

I'm pretty sure I read about POET and BARD somewhere in the repos or archives of the Medley project and I'll dig up the relevant reference. If I recall correctly POET and BARD were text generation systems for (creative) writing.

[Paul McJones]

Paolo,

Paul, these notes are extremely interesting for the Interlisp timeline and more. If you publish the material please let us know.

I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to publish the material, but I think it’s fine for you folks to simply refer to facts from it (e.g., the date of adoption of the name “INTERLISP”) without attribution.

Paul