Re: String QLISP appears in 289 filenames in the SAILDART.

[Larry Masinter]

There are source files for the QLisp dandelion microcode in the Computer History Museum Xerox PARC ARchives, under

https://xeroxparcarchive.computerhistory.org/eris/lispcore/dlionsource/.index.html

I haven't found any Lisp code for QLISP but this at least gives some idea of what microcode was needed to port QLISP to a new machine.

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https://LarryMasinter.net  https://interlisp.org

On Tue, Jun 2, 2026 at 11:29 AM Paul McJones <pa...@mcjones.org> wrote:

Bruce,

The QLISP references you found are to a different system: it was a parallel (queued?) Lisp done by Dick Gabriel at Stanford — thus the mentions by CLT and JMC.

Enjoy Asilomar! We tried to go to Point Lobos a few months ago, but the parking lot was closed by 9am.


Paul

> On Jun 2, 2026, at 11:21 AM, Bruce Baumgart <bgbau...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> Paul
>
>> On May 31, 2026, at 1:21 PM, Paul McJones <pa...@mcjones.org> wrote:
>>
>> Bruce,
>>
>> I really enjoyed the Paleo dinner at CHM last night. I met lots of interesting people, and also ran across people I hadn’t talked to in a number of years (Marc Kaufman, Marc LeBrun). It was very kind of you to include me at this event — I felt like I’d been invited to hang out with a warm extended family group.
>>
>> My question: do you think there is any QLISP code in saildart.org? I”m referring to the original SRI QLISP that was embedded in INTERLISP — I was talking to Earl Sacerdoti about it last night. (Richard Gabriel had another Qlisp in the 1980s.)
>>
>>
>> Paul
>>
>
>
> The String QLISP appears in 289 filenames in the SAILDART.
>
> All the files I looked at are not the actual QLISP implementation but rather email threads, budget discussions, technical notes.
>
> The 19 accounts include CLT = Carol Talbot and JMC = John McCarty.  15 person account + DOC and LSP which are systems accounts.
>
>
> I have to get my concordance of SAILDART rebuilt and
>
> I will send you what I have found - on vacation at Asilomar until Saturday.
>
> perhaps write Larry Masinter - he now has an unreacted SAILDART
>
>
> Bruce

[Paul McJones]

Larry,

I don’t understand what what QLisp referrred to with this Dandelion microcode. So far I know of two Lisp implementations that called themselves QLisp:

1. Earl Sacerdoti and his colleagues at SRI implemented something called QLISP (with ideas from their earlier QA3 and QA4); it was imbedded in INTERLISP using the spelling corrector.

2. Dick Gabriel at Stanford did a parallel Lisp (“queued Lisp”).

Do you think this Dandelion microcode was related to either one of those?

Paul

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