Lisp Machines
Encyclopedia
Lisp Machines, Inc. was a company formed in 1979 by Richard Greenblatt
of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to build Lisp machine
s. It was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts
.
By 1979, the Lisp Machine Project at MIT, originated and headed by Greenblatt, had constructed over 30 CADR computers
for various projects at MIT. It was evident that it was time for the project to move from a university research to a company setting.
Russell Noftsker
, who had formerly been administrator of the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab some years previously and who had
since started and run a small company, was convinced that computers based on the artificial intelligence language LISP
had a bright future commercially. There were a number of ready customers who were anxious to get machines similar to ones they had seen at MIT.
Greenblatt and Noftsker had differing ideas about the structure and financing of the proposed company. Greenblatt believed
the company could be "bootstrapped", ie. financed practically from scratch from the order flow from customers (some of whom
were willing to pay in advance). This would mean that the principals of the company would retain control. Noftsker favored
a more conventional venture capital model, raising a considerable sum of money, but with the investors having control
of the company. The two negotiated at length, but neither would compromise.
The ensuing discussions of the choice rent the lab into two factions. In February, 1979, matters came to a head. Greenblatt believed that the proceeds from the construction and sale of a few machines could be profitably reinvested in the funding of the company. Most sided with Noftsker, believing that a commercial venture fund-backed company had a better chance of surviving and commercializing Lisp Machines than Greenblatt's proposed self-sustaining start-up. They went on to start Symbolics
Inc.
Alexander Jacobson, a consultant from CDC
, was trying to put together an AI natural language computer application, came to Greenblatt, seeking a Lisp machine for his group to work with. Eight months after Greenblatt had his disastrous conference with Noftsker, he had yet to produce anything. Alexander Jacobson decided that the only way Greenblatt was going to actually start his company and build the Lisp machines that Jacobson needed, was if he pushed and financially helped Greenblatt launch his company. Jacobson pulled together business plans, a board, and a partner, F. Stephen Wyle, for Greenblatt. The newfound company was named LISP Machine, Inc. (LMI), and was funded mostly by order flow including CDC orders, via Jacobson.
and used for the first time in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (1984). Levy's account of hackers is in large part based on the values of the hackers at MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Among these hackers was Richard Stallman
, whom Levy at the time called the last true hacker.
When Noftsker started Symbolics, while he was able to pay salaries, he didn't actually have a building or any equipment for the programmers to work on. He bargained with Patrick Winston that, in exchange for allowing Symbolics' staff to keep working out of MIT, Symbolics would let MIT use internally and freely all the software Symbolics developed. Unfortunately this openness would later lead to accusations of intellectual property theft.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, to prevent software from being used on their competitors' computers, most manufacturers stopped distributing source code
and began using copyright and restrictive software licenses to limit or prohibit copying and redistribution. Such proprietary software
had existed before, but this shift in the legal characteristics of software can be regarded as a consequence triggered by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976
, as stated by MIT fellow Brewster Kahle
.
While both companies delivered proprietary software
, Richard Stallman
believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab. Stallman had proclaimed that "the prospect of charging money for software was a crime against humanity." He clarified, years later, that it is blocking the user's freedom that he believes is a "crime", not the act of charging for a copy of the software.
Symbolics had recruited most of the remaining MIT hackers including notable hacker Bill Gosper, who then left the AI Lab. Symbolics forced Greenblatt to also resign at the AI lab, by citing MIT policies. So for two years at the MIT AI Lab, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman singlehandedly duplicated the efforts of the Symbolics programmers, in order to prevent them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers.
Although LMI was able to benefit from Stallman's freely available code, he was the last of his generation of hackers at the lab. Later programmers would have to sign non-disclosure agreement
s not to share source code
or technical information with other software developers.
from the MIT Lab as the LM-2. Symbolics had been hindered by Noftsker's promise to give Greenblatt a year's head start
, and by severe delays in procuring venture capital
. Symbolics still had the major advantage that while 3 or 4 of the AI Lab hackers had gone to work for Greenblatt, a solid 14 other hackers had signed onto Symbolics. There were two AI Lab people who did not get hired by either: Richard Stallman
and Marvin Minsky
.
Symbolics ended up producing around 100 LM-2s, each of which sold for $70,000. Both companies developed second-generation products based on the CADR: the Symbolics 3600
and the LMI-LAMBDA (of which LMI managed to sell around 200). The 3600, which shipped a year late, expanded on the CADR by widening the machine word to 36-bits, expanding the address space to 28-bits, and adding hardware to accelerate certain common functions that were implemented in microcode on the CADR. The LMI-LAMBDA, which came out a year after the 3600, in 1983, was mostly upward compatible with the CADR (source CADR microcode
fragments could be reassembled), but there were improvements in instruction fetch and other hardware differences including use of a multiplier chip and a faster logic family and cache memory. The LAMBDA featured use of the NuBus
, which had been originated by Steve Ward's group at MIT, and, through a separate chain of events, was being developed by Western Digital
Corporation. This allowed the popular LAMBDA "2x2" configuration whereby two machines shared one infrastructure, with considerable savings. Texas Instruments
(TI) later joined the fray when it licensed the LMI-LAMBDA design and purchased the NUBUS associated assets from Western Digital and still later produced its own variant, the TI Explorer
.
Symbolics continued to develop the 3600 family and its operating system, Genera, and produced the Ivory, a VLSI
chip implementation of the Symbolics architecture. Texas Instruments shrunk the Explorer into silicon as the MicroExplorer. LMI abandoned the CADR architecture and developed its own K-Machine, but LMI went bankrupt in 1987 before the machine could be brought to market.
Richard Greenblatt (programmer)
Richard D. Greenblatt is an American computer programmer. Along with Bill Gosper, he may be considered to have founded the hacker community, and holds a place of distinction in the Lisp and the MIT AI Lab communities.-Childhood:...
of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to build Lisp machine
Lisp machine
Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations...
s. It was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
.
By 1979, the Lisp Machine Project at MIT, originated and headed by Greenblatt, had constructed over 30 CADR computers
for various projects at MIT. It was evident that it was time for the project to move from a university research to a company setting.
Russell Noftsker
Russell Noftsker
Russell Noftsker is an American entrepreneur who notably founded Symbolics, and was its first chairman and president.-Biography:Steven Levy described Noftsker as "A compactly built blond with pursed features and blue eyes"...
, who had formerly been administrator of the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab some years previously and who had
since started and run a small company, was convinced that computers based on the artificial intelligence language LISP
Lisp
A lisp is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants , and replace them with interdentals , though there are actually several kinds of lisp...
had a bright future commercially. There were a number of ready customers who were anxious to get machines similar to ones they had seen at MIT.
Greenblatt and Noftsker had differing ideas about the structure and financing of the proposed company. Greenblatt believed
the company could be "bootstrapped", ie. financed practically from scratch from the order flow from customers (some of whom
were willing to pay in advance). This would mean that the principals of the company would retain control. Noftsker favored
a more conventional venture capital model, raising a considerable sum of money, but with the investors having control
of the company. The two negotiated at length, but neither would compromise.
The ensuing discussions of the choice rent the lab into two factions. In February, 1979, matters came to a head. Greenblatt believed that the proceeds from the construction and sale of a few machines could be profitably reinvested in the funding of the company. Most sided with Noftsker, believing that a commercial venture fund-backed company had a better chance of surviving and commercializing Lisp Machines than Greenblatt's proposed self-sustaining start-up. They went on to start Symbolics
Symbolics
Symbolics refers to two companies: now-defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc., and a privately held company that acquired the assets of the former company and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp system and the Macsyma computer algebra system.The symbolics.com domain was...
Inc.
Alexander Jacobson, a consultant from CDC
Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation was a supercomputer firm. For most of the 1960s, it built the fastest computers in the world by far, only losing that crown in the 1970s after Seymour Cray left the company to found Cray Research, Inc....
, was trying to put together an AI natural language computer application, came to Greenblatt, seeking a Lisp machine for his group to work with. Eight months after Greenblatt had his disastrous conference with Noftsker, he had yet to produce anything. Alexander Jacobson decided that the only way Greenblatt was going to actually start his company and build the Lisp machines that Jacobson needed, was if he pushed and financially helped Greenblatt launch his company. Jacobson pulled together business plans, a board, and a partner, F. Stephen Wyle, for Greenblatt. The newfound company was named LISP Machine, Inc. (LMI), and was funded mostly by order flow including CDC orders, via Jacobson.
Folklore about LMI
The following parable-like story is told about LMI by Steven LevySteven Levy
Steven Levy is an American journalist who has written several books on computers, technology, cryptography, the Internet, cybersecurity, and privacy.-Career:...
and used for the first time in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (1984). Levy's account of hackers is in large part based on the values of the hackers at MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Among these hackers was Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
, whom Levy at the time called the last true hacker.
When Noftsker started Symbolics, while he was able to pay salaries, he didn't actually have a building or any equipment for the programmers to work on. He bargained with Patrick Winston that, in exchange for allowing Symbolics' staff to keep working out of MIT, Symbolics would let MIT use internally and freely all the software Symbolics developed. Unfortunately this openness would later lead to accusations of intellectual property theft.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, to prevent software from being used on their competitors' computers, most manufacturers stopped distributing source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
and began using copyright and restrictive software licenses to limit or prohibit copying and redistribution. Such proprietary software
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
had existed before, but this shift in the legal characteristics of software can be regarded as a consequence triggered by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976
Copyright Act of 1976
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions...
, as stated by MIT fellow Brewster Kahle
Brewster Kahle
Brewster Kahle is a computer engineer, internet entrepreneur, activist, and digital librarian.- Biography :Kahle graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science in computer science and engineering, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. The...
.
While both companies delivered proprietary software
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
, Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab. Stallman had proclaimed that "the prospect of charging money for software was a crime against humanity." He clarified, years later, that it is blocking the user's freedom that he believes is a "crime", not the act of charging for a copy of the software.
Symbolics had recruited most of the remaining MIT hackers including notable hacker Bill Gosper, who then left the AI Lab. Symbolics forced Greenblatt to also resign at the AI lab, by citing MIT policies. So for two years at the MIT AI Lab, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman singlehandedly duplicated the efforts of the Symbolics programmers, in order to prevent them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers.
Although LMI was able to benefit from Stallman's freely available code, he was the last of his generation of hackers at the lab. Later programmers would have to sign non-disclosure agreement
Non-disclosure agreement
A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement , confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties...
s not to share source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
or technical information with other software developers.
Decline
Lisp Machines, Inc. sold its first LISP machines, designed at MIT, as the LMI-CADR. After a series of internal battles, Symbolics began selling the CADRLisp machine
Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations...
from the MIT Lab as the LM-2. Symbolics had been hindered by Noftsker's promise to give Greenblatt a year's head start
Head start (positioning)
In positioning, a head start is a start in advance of the starting position of others in competition, or simply toward the finish line or desired outcome...
, and by severe delays in procuring venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
. Symbolics still had the major advantage that while 3 or 4 of the AI Lab hackers had gone to work for Greenblatt, a solid 14 other hackers had signed onto Symbolics. There were two AI Lab people who did not get hired by either: Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
and Marvin Minsky
Marvin Minsky
Marvin Lee Minsky is an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence , co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.-Biography:...
.
Symbolics ended up producing around 100 LM-2s, each of which sold for $70,000. Both companies developed second-generation products based on the CADR: the Symbolics 3600
Symbolics
Symbolics refers to two companies: now-defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc., and a privately held company that acquired the assets of the former company and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp system and the Macsyma computer algebra system.The symbolics.com domain was...
and the LMI-LAMBDA (of which LMI managed to sell around 200). The 3600, which shipped a year late, expanded on the CADR by widening the machine word to 36-bits, expanding the address space to 28-bits, and adding hardware to accelerate certain common functions that were implemented in microcode on the CADR. The LMI-LAMBDA, which came out a year after the 3600, in 1983, was mostly upward compatible with the CADR (source CADR microcode
Microcode
Microcode is a layer of hardware-level instructions and/or data structures involved in the implementation of higher level machine code instructions in many computers and other processors; it resides in special high-speed memory and translates machine instructions into sequences of detailed...
fragments could be reassembled), but there were improvements in instruction fetch and other hardware differences including use of a multiplier chip and a faster logic family and cache memory. The LAMBDA featured use of the NuBus
NuBus
NuBus is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT as a part of the NuMachine workstation project. The first complete implementation of the NuBus and the NuMachine was done by Western Digital for their NuMachine, and for the Lisp Machines Inc. LMI-Lambda. The NuBus was later...
, which had been originated by Steve Ward's group at MIT, and, through a separate chain of events, was being developed by Western Digital
Western Digital
Western Digital Corporation is one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world. It has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 by Alvin B...
Corporation. This allowed the popular LAMBDA "2x2" configuration whereby two machines shared one infrastructure, with considerable savings. Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
(TI) later joined the fray when it licensed the LMI-LAMBDA design and purchased the NUBUS associated assets from Western Digital and still later produced its own variant, the TI Explorer
TI Explorer
The Texas Instruments Explorer is a family of Lisp Machine computers. These computers were sold by Texas Instruments in the 1980s. The Explorer is based on a design from Lisp Machines Incorporated, which is based on the MIT Lisp Machine....
.
Symbolics continued to develop the 3600 family and its operating system, Genera, and produced the Ivory, a VLSI
Very-large-scale integration
Very-large-scale integration is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.The first semiconductor...
chip implementation of the Symbolics architecture. Texas Instruments shrunk the Explorer into silicon as the MicroExplorer. LMI abandoned the CADR architecture and developed its own K-Machine, but LMI went bankrupt in 1987 before the machine could be brought to market.