What's a Lisp Machine?

From: Buck Savage <hhacker_at_gte.net>
Date: Mon Nov 30 16:49:14 1998

There were two lisp machine manufacturers that evolved from an MIT lab,
one was Symbolics (a company in which I owned stock, and for which a
high school buddy worked for several years, and which was based in
Chatsworth California for about 8 years) and Lisp Machines Inc, about
which I know very little except to say that these companies were constantly
at eachothers throats, and who's corporate heads were both former
co-workers at MIT. If you want more details, I can accomodate by asking
this old high school buddy.

As for if any such machines remain, I imagine so, since for one, a Mac
compatible version from Symbolics (an single board micro, plugged into
the Mac backplane/motherboard) was available up to a few years ago
from Symbolics. The name of the product now escapes me but, when
I recall it, I will post an additional message.

As a side note, the mathematics processor known as Macsyma (the
original product - reverse engineered by Stephen Wolfram to produce
Mathematica) was a lisp based product, and sold by Symbolics. As I
understand, it is really Macsyma that gave birth to Symbolics, for their
lisp machines were originally designed to support Macsyma applications.

William R. Buckley

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike <dogas_at_leading.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, November 30, 1998 1:59 PM
Subject: Re: What's a Lisp Machine?


>>
>>Well, I don't know what other "LISP machines" exist, but a couple
>>
>
>There was a TI Expolorer that was also a Lisp Machine. I used to drool
over
>their ads in Scientific American... alas...
>- Mike: dogas_at_leading.net
>
>
>
Received on Mon Nov 30 1998 - 16:49:14 GMT