LISP 1.5 family

• LISP I and LISP 1.5 for IBM 704, 709, 7090
• LISP 1.5 for CTSS
• LISP 1.5 at Stanford
• SHARE LISP 1.5

LISP I and LISP 1.5 for IBM 704, 709, 7090

From the Preface to the LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual [McCarthy et al. 1962]:

"The overall design of the LISP Programming System is the work of John McCarthy and is based on his paper 'Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine' which was published in Communications of the ACM, April 1960.

This manual was written by Michael I. Levin.

The interpreter was programmed by Stephen R. Russell and Daniel J. Edwards.

The print and read programs were written by John McCarthy, Klim Maling, Daniel J. Edwards, and Paul W. Abrahams.

The garbage collector and arithmetic features were written by Daniel J. Edwards.

The compiler and assembler were written by Timothy P. Hart and Michael I. Levin.

An earlier compiler was written by Robert Brayton.

The 'LISP I Programmer's Manual,' March 1, 1960, was written by Phyllis A. Fox.

Additional programs and suggestions were contributed by the following members of the Artificial Intelligence Group of the Research Laboratory of Electronics: Marvin L. Minsky, Bertram Raphael, Louis Hodes, David M.R. Park, David C. Luckham, Daniel G. Bobrow, James R. Slagle, and Nathaniel Rochester."

Source code

System

• LISP system assembly listing. "FIELD TEST ASSEMBLY OF LISP 1.5 SEPTEMBER 1961", labeled "Bonnie's Birthday Assembly". Science and Technology Collection, M.I.T. Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, catalog number 1993.053, donated by Timothy P. Hart.

  Ruth Bonnie (Thompson) Glaser worked in the AI lab. [Tim Hart, personal communication, 23 March 2005]

  • Jack Harper. Scan of listing. PDF (16MB)
  • Pascal Bourguignon. Reconstruction of assembly source code. Fetched from www.informatimago.com/develop/lisp/lisp15-0.0.tar.gz on June 8, 2005. .tar.gz (background at Dusty Decks)
  • Rich Cornwell and Bob Abeles. Proofread reconstruction of assembly source code. unpacked
    • This should be runnable under SIMH or Rich's variation of SIMH for the IBM 704, but it still needs some debugging by someone with Lisp 1.5 experience or a desire to learn. Contact paul@mcjones.org if you are interested.
  • Asher Olsen. Hypertext version of source code. (See also Olsen: The First Lisp Compiler below.) Online at texdraft.github.io
  • Andru Luvisi. Running Lisp 1.5 in the SIMH IBM 7094 emulator. Online at sonoma.edu via archive.org

    Explains how to get the original LISP 1.5 running on the emulator; includes everything you need except the emulator itself.

  • Dave Pitts. IBM 7090/7094 Page. Online at cozx.com

    Emulator, tools, and software to run IBSYS, CTSS, LISP, and much more.

• LISP 1.5 Library. Contains PUNCHLAP, PRINTPROP, PUNCHDEF, TRACESET, COMPILER, SIMPLIFY [MIT AI Memo 27], METEOR [MIT AI MEMO 51], MACRO [AI MEMO 57], DEFINELIST, MATHREAD [Stanford AI Memo 18], and Compiler test. Version of November 1963. From Herbert Stoyan Collection on LISP Programming, Lot Number X5687.2010. PDF
• Timothy P. Hart and Michael I. Levin. LISP 1.5 compiler. IBM 7090 assembly language. Page 2 line 12 through page 7 line 17 of LISP 1.5 library listing.
  • Angelo Papenhoff, transcriptionist. Machine-readable transcription, 2022. Includes a formatted version and a formatted, partially-commented version (work in progress, subject to updates).
    • compiler.lisp
    • compiler_format.lisp
    • compiler_comments.lisp
• See also LISP 1.5 for CTSS, below.
• LISP system assembly listing. Steve Russell may have in his archives "a listing of some version of 704/709/7090 Lisp". He says he'd be happy to donated his Lisp artifacts to the Computer History Museum, but it will be some time before he is able to search the depths of his archives. [Personal communication to Paul McJones, 16 March 2005.]
• LISP distribution tape listing. Listing of source distribution tape sent by Timothy P. Hart to John Allen. Source card images for LISP 1.5 plus the initial library written in LISP, including test cases, the compiled compiler, etc. Annotations by Allen pertaining to the conversion to a slightly different version of the machine, November 1964. Property of John R. Allen. [Personal communication to Paul McJones, June 11, 2005.]

Applications

The only LISP 1.5 application source code encountered to date has been in various publications.

• McCarthy et al. A Complete LISP Program - the Wang Algorithm for the Propositional Calculus. Chapter 12 of Lisp 1.5 Programmer's Manual. PDF
• Daniel G. Bobrow. The LISP Program for METEOR. In: The Programming Language Lisp : Its Operation and Applications, pages 249-259. PDF
  • See also: Daniel G. Bobrow. METEOR: A LISP Interpreter for String Transformations. In: The Programming Language Lisp : Its Operation and Applications, pages 161-190. PDF
  • See also: Daniel G. Bobrow. METEOR: A LISP Interpreter for String Transformations. Memo 51, Artificial Intelligence Projects, RLE and MIT Computation Center, April 24, 1963, 41 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

    Earlier version of the two METEOR articles in Berkeley and Bobrow.

• Malcolm Pivar and Elaine Gord. The LISP Programs for Inductive Inference on Sequences. In: The Programming Language Lisp : Its Operation and Applications, pages 260-289. PDF
  • See also: Malcolm Pivar and Mark Finkelstein. Automation, Using LISP, of Inductive Inference on Sequences. Pages 125-136. PDF
• William Henneman. The LISP Program for the A-Language. In: The Programming Language Lisp : Its Operation and Applications, pages 318-325. PDF
  • See also: An Auxiliary Language for More Natural Expression – the A-Language. In: The Programming Language Lisp : Its Operation and Applications, pages 239-248. PDF
• Lewis Mark Norton. ADEPT – A Heuristic Program for Proving Theorems of Group Theory. Ph.D. Thesis, MIT-LCS-TR-033, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, September 1966, 178 pages. PDF at MIT

  Appendix III lists the source for ADEPT.

• W.A. Martin. Symbolic Mathematical Laboratory. Ph.D. Thesis, MIT-LCS-TR-036, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 1967. Online at dspace.mit.edu

  Includes source listing.

• Joel Moses. Symbolic Integration. Ph.D. Thesis, MIT-LCS-TR-047, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 1967, 268 pages.
  • Original MIT scan, with missing pages replaced. PDF
  • Grayscale scan (200dpi?) PDF at MIT

  Appendix F lists the source for SIN (symbolic integration) and SOLDIER (solutions of ordinary differential equations routine).

• Marvin Minsky, editor. Semantic Information Processing. MIT Press, 1968.

• Daniel G. Bobrow. Natural Language Input for a Computer Problem-Solving System. Pages 146-226. Appendix 3.2 is a listing of the STUDENT program.
• Fischer Black. A Deductive Question Answering System. Pages 354-402. Appendix 6.1 is a listing of a basic version of the program.

Documentation and papers

• J. McCarthy. Memo to P. M. Morse: A Proposal for a compiler. Memo CC-56, Computation Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 13, 1957, 19 pages.
  • Copy 1, with handwritten annotations (by McCarthy?). From Herbert Stoyan Collection on LISP Programming, Lot Number X5687.2010. PDF
  • Copy 2, page 19 missing. Courtesy of Tom Knight, MIT CSAIL. PDF
• J. McCarthy. An Algebraic Language for the Manipulation of Symbolic Expressions. Memo No. 1, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, September 1958, 20 pages. Courtesy of Tom Knight, MIT CSAIL. PDF
• J. McCarthy: A Revised Version of "MAPLIST". Memo 2, Symbol Manipulating Language, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, September(?) 1958. PDF of page 1

  Cited by Stoyan 1984, who slides included a copy of page 1. Although the whereabouts of a complete copy of this memo are not known, it would appear to be similar or identical to section 2 (pages 4-8) of Memo No. 4 below.

• J. McCarthy. Symbol Manipulating Language - Revisions of the Language. MIT AI Lab., Memo No. 3, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, October 1958, 11 pages. Courtesy of Tom Knight, MIT CSAIL. PDF
• J. McCarthy. Symbol Manipulating Language - Revisions of the Language. MIT AI Lab., Memo No. 4, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, October 1958, 22 pages. Courtesy of Tom Knight, MIT CSAIL. PDF
• N. Rochester. Symbol Manipulation Language. Memo 5, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, November 20, 1958. From Herbert Stoyan Collection on LISP Programming, Lot Number X5687.2010. PDF
• S. Russell. Writing and Debugging Programs. Memo 6, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center. Undated, 7 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• J. McCarthy. Notes on the Compiler. Memo 7, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center. Undated, 2 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• J. McCarthy, K. Maling, S. Russell, N. Rochester, S. Goldberg, J. Slagle. LISP Programmer's Manual. MIT Artificial Intelligence Project. March-April, 1959. Courtesy of Tom Knight, MIT CSAIL. PDF
• Anonymous. [Maling?] Compiler. MIT, Cambridge, undated (circa 1959). From Herbert Stoyan Collection on LISP Programming, Lot Number X5687.2010. PDF
• Anonymous. [Maling?] The Compiler in LISP, MIT, Cambridge, undated (circa 1959). From Herbert Stoyan Collection on LISP Programming, Lot Number X5687.2010. PDF
• John McCarthy. LISP: a programming system for symbolic manipulations. Preprint of paper presented at the 14th national meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery, 1959, pages 1-4. ACM DL
• J. McCarthy. Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine. Memo 8, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, March 13, 1959, 19 pages. Online at dspace.mit.edu
• S.R. Russell. Explanation of Big "P" as of March 20, 1959. Memo 9, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, 4 pages. Online at dspace.mit.edu
• K. Maling. The LISP Differentiation Demonstration Program. Memo 10, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 6 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• J. McCarthy. Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine. Memo 11, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, March 30, 1959, 17 pages. Online at dspace.mit.edu

  "This memorandum is a continuation of Memo 8"

• John McCarthy. Programs in LISP. Memo 12, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 7 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "This memo depends only on the RLE QPR [Quarterly Project Report?] No. 53 discussion of LISP. This takes the form of allowing functions to be described by programs including sequences of Fortran-like statements, e.g. y=cons[ff[subst[A;y;z]];(A,B)]"

• J. McCarthy, R. Brayton, D. Edwards, P. Fox, L. Hodes, D. Luckham, K. Maling, D. Park and S. Russell. LISP Preliminary Programmer's Manual - draft. Computation Center and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 17, 1960. From Herbert Stoyan Collection on LISP Programming, Lot Number X5687.2010. PDF
• K. Maling. The Maling-Silver Read Program. Memo 13, Symbol Manipulation Language, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, 7 pages, undated but appendix says "1-20-59". PDF at bitsavers.org
• J. McCarthy. The Wang Algorithm for the Propositional Calculus. Memo 14, Symbol Manipulation Language, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, 13 pages, undated. PDF at bitsavers.org
• J. McCarthy, R. Brayton, D. Edwards, P. Fox, L. Hodes, D. Luckham, K. Maling, D. Park and S. Russell. LISP I Programmer's Manual. Computation Center and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, March 1, 1960.
  • Copy 1: Computer History Museum Lot X????.200?, George Michael donation. PDF at bitsavers.org
  • Copy 2: Science and Technology Collection, M.I.T. Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, catalog number 1993.053, donated by Timothy P. Hart. Missing cover and Acknowledgements. PDF
  • Copy 3: From Supplementary Materials for Oral History of Phyllis A. Fox. The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). PDF at siam.org via archive.org
• John McCarthy. Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their computation by machine, Part I. Communications of the ACM, Volume 3, Issue 4 (April 1960), pages 184-195. ACM DL Online at stanford.edu
• Paul W. Abrahams. Character-handling Facilities in the LISP System. Memo 22A[?], Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, January 27, 1961, 12 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Robert Brayton. Trace-Printing for Compiled Programs. Memo 23, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 2 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Michael Levin. Arithmetic in LISP 1.5. Memo 24, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, April 28, 1961, 8 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "As of present, the following parts of LISP 1.5 are working. This is an excerpt from the forth coming LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual."

• Anonymous. Error Stops. Memo 25, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, May 10, 1961, 1 page. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Michael Levin. Errorset. Memo 26, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 3 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• John McCarthy et al. LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual.
  • J. McCarthy, M. Minsky, P. Abrahams, R. Brayton, D. Edwards, L. Hodes, D. Luckham, M. Levin, D. Park, and T. Hart. Lisp 1.5 Programmer's Manual. Computation Center and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, July 14, 1961. From Herbert Stoyan Collection on LISP Programming, Lot Number X5687.2010. PDF
  • John McCarthy, Paul W. Abrahams, Daniel J. Edwards, Timothy P. Hart, Michael I. Levin. LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual. Computation Center and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, August 17, 1962. Online at Internet Archive
  • John McCarthy, Paul W. Abrahams, Daniel J. Edwards, Timothy P. Hart, Michael I. Levin. LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962. Posted here by permission of The MIT Press. PDF
• Michael Levin. LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual [Errata]. Memo 28, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 2 pages PDF at bitsavers.org

  "The manual is intended to apply to a version of LISP 1.5 called 'LISP 1.5 Export A' which has not yet been issued. LISP 1.5 systems preceding this version differ in certain details."

• John McCarthy. A Basis for a Mathematical Theory of Computation. Memo 31, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and Computation Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 39, Massachusetts, January 1962, 33 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "This paper is a corrected version of the paper of the same title given at the Western Joint Computer Conference, May 1961. A tenth section discussing the relations between mathematical logic and computation has been added."

• John McCarthy. On Efficient Ways of Evaluating Certain Recursive Functions. Artificial Intelligence Memo No. 32, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Project MAC, undated (circa 1962), 5 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• John McCarthy. A New Eval Function. Artificial Intelligence Memo No. 34, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Project MAC, undated (circa 1962), 14 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Anonymous. LAP (LISP Assembly Program). Memo 35, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated (circa 1962), 4 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• T. Hart and M. Levin. The New Compiler. Memo 39, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated (circa 1962?), 4 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "This memo introduces the brand new LISP 1.5 Compiler designed and programmed by Tim Hart and Mike Levin. It is written entirely in LISP and is the first compiler that has ever compiled itself by being executed interpretively."

• Michael Levin. Primitive Recursion. Memo 55, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, 1 July 1963. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Timothy P. Hart. MACRO Definitions for LISP. Memo 57, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, October 22[?], 1963, 4 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• M.L. Minsky. A LISP Garbage Collector Algorithm Using Serial Secondary Storage. Memo 58 (Revised), Artificial Intelligence Project and Memorandum MAC-M-129, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 27, 1963, 4 pages (out of order). PDF at bitsavers.org

  "Paper to be presented at the First International LISP Conference, Mexico City, Mexico, December 30 – January 3, 1964."

  [Was this algorithm being contemplated for 7090 LISP on CTSS?]

• Daniel J. Edwards. Secondary Storage in LISP. Memo 63, Artificial Intelligence Project and Memorandum MAC-M-128, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 27, 1963, 4 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "Paper to be presented at the First International LISP Conference, Mexico City, Mexico, December 30 – January 3, 1964."

• Timothy P. Hart and Michael I. Levin. LISP Exercises. Memo 64, Artificial Intelligence Project and Memorandum MAC-M-134, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 24, 1964, 27 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  A version of this appears in Berkeley and Bobrow.

• Edmund C. Berkeley and Daniel G. Bobrow, editors. The Programming Language Lisp : Its Operation and Applications. Posted here by permission of The MIT Press.
  • Information International, Inc., March 1964. PDF
  • The MIT Press, April 1966. PDF
• Clark Weissman. LISP 1.5 Primer. Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc., Belmont, California, 1967. Posted here by permission of Clark Weissman. PDF

Applications

• Anthony Valiant Phillips. A Question-Answering Routine. Memo 16, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, May 21, 1960, 20 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• John McCarthy. Programs with Common Sense. Memo 17, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 9 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "This paper was presented at a Symposium on The Mechanization of Thought Processes, which was held at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex, England from 24th-27th November 1958."

• Louis Hodes. Some Results from a Pattern Recognition Program using LISP. Memo 18, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 3 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• John McCarthy. Puzzle Solving Program in LISP. Memo 20, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 2 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Paul W. Abrahams. The Proofchecker. Memo 21, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, January 25, 1961, 21 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• James R. Slagle. A heuristic program that solves symbolic integration problems in freshman calculus : symbolic automatic integrator (SAINT). PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 1961. Online at dspace.mit.edu
• James R. Slagle. A Heuristic Program that Solves Symbolic Integration Problems in Freshman Calculus. Journal of the ACM, Volume 10, Number 4 (October 1963), pages 507-520. ACM Digital Library
• Tim Hart. SIMPLIFY. Memo 27, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, undated, 5 pages [missing pages 2 and 4]. PDF at bitsavers.org
• D.J. Edwards and T.P. Hart. The Alpha-Beta Heuristic. Memo 30 (revised), Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, October 28, 1963, 5 pages. PDF / PDF at bitsavers.org

  "(This is a revised version of The Tree Prune (TP) Algorithm, AI Memo 30, December 4, 1961.)"

• T.G. Evans. A Heuristic program to solve Geometry Analogy Problems. Memo 46, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, October 24, 1962, 15 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Bertram Raphael. Computer Representation of Semantic Information. Memo 49, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, April 5, 1963, 12 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

LISP 1.5 for CTSS

LISP 1.5 initially ran on the "bare machine" (with its own monitor called Overlord for handling tapes, reading and writing of core images, and taking dumps – see Appendix E of The Lisp 1.5 Programmer's Manual).

"We had a crisis in our research program in AI in the fall of 1965. Those of us who were using the LISP system on the IBM 7094 at Project MAC would soon be unable to use it further because the time-sharing system, CTSS, was being modified. CTSS and its follow-on system, MULTICS, were the key projects at MAC. The head of these projects was Prof. Fernando Corbató, known as Corby. Some of the students said “Project MAC” stood for Minsky Against Corby, although I believe that their relationship was quite cordial. I would later work closely with Corby on academic administration. He was a superb systems thinker, as his work on CTSS and MULTICS clearly showed.

All the people who had initially developed LISP for the IBM 7094 machine had by then left MIT; due to Minsky’s management style there was no one in charge of modifying LISP so that it would continue to run on CTSS. Since I needed to use the system for my research, I decided to make the modifications myself. I found an old listing of the assembly code for LISP which contained hand-written comments on errors and missing features written by the original group of programmers. I used this information to make patches in the binary version of LISP. In a weekend’s worth of work I was able to get the LISP system to operate under the modified version of CTSS." [Joel Moses. My Life.]

Source code

• LISP system assembly listing. CTSS LISP 1.5. Belonged to Joel Moses; he notes "It had handwritten annotations by some of the original group, possibly including Evans and Hart." Unfortunately Joel believes his listing was lost during one of his many interoffice moves. [Personal communication to Paul McJones, 12 March 2005.]
• LISP system assembly listing. CTSS LISP 1.5, 7 February 1966. Donated by Robert R. Fenichel.
  • Listing. 216 pages. PDF
  • Notes by Joel Moses and Robert R. Fenichel. Email and notes, presumably from 1965-1966. PDF
• CTSS LISP 1.5 Library. Contains PUNCHLAP, PRINTPROP, PUNCHDEF, TRACESET, COMPILER, SIMPLIFY [MIT AI Memo 27], METEOR [MIT AI MEMO 51], MACRO [AI MEMO 57], DEFINELIST, MATHREAD [Stanford AI Memo 18], and Compiler test. lispset.job at github.com/rcornwell
• Timothy P. Hart and Michael I. Levin. CTSS LISP 1.5 compiler. IBM 7090 assembly language. Lines 278 through 592 of lispset.job at github.com/rcornwell
• Asher Olsen. The First Lisp Compiler. 2022. A detailed walkthrough of the Hart & Levin Lisp compiler. Includes a nicely typeset pretty-printed version of the compiler, as well as an executable Common Lisp translation of the compiler. Online at texdraft.github.io
• Dave Pitts. IBM 7090/7094 Page. Online at cozx.com

  Emulator, tools, and software to run IBSYS, CTSS, LISP, and much more.

Documentation

• F.J. Corbató, M.M. Daggett, R.C. Daley, R.J Creasy, J.D. Hellwig, R.H. Orenstein, and L.K. Korn. The Compatible Time-Sharing System : A Programmer's Guide. The M.I.T. Press, 1963. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Richard A. Robnett. Suggestions for LISP Time-Sharing System. Memo 50, Artificial Intelligence Project, RLE and MIT Computation Center, April 3, 1963, 3 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• William Martin and Timothy Hart. Revised User's Version: Time Sharing LISP. Memo 67 (Revised), Artificial Intelligence Project, Memorandum MAC-M-153 (Revised), Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 15, 1964, 8 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• T. Hart. CTSS LISP NOTICE – Supplement to A.I. Memo No. 67. Memo 74, Artificial Intelligence Project, Memorandum MAC-M-206, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 7, 1964, 4 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Robert R. Fenichel and Joel Moses. A New Version of CTSS LISP. Artificial Intelligence Memo 93, Project MAC Memorandum MAC-M-296, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 2, 1966, 13 pages, PDF at bitsavers.org

  "Summary: A new version of CTSS LISP is now available. The new system provides additional data storage and several new functions and constants. The I/O capabilities, EXCISE, the error comments, and several routines have been improved. Much irrelevant code and many bugs have all been removed.

  FAP source decks and BCD listings are available. The decks are organized so as to ease the job of assembling private LISP systems in which unneeded features are abset.

  Without reassembling, the user can create a private LISP system in which the data storage space has been arbitrarily allocated among binary program space, the push-down list, full word space, and free storage.

  It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the old version of LISP as described in AI Memos 67 and 74 (MAC M-153 and M-206)."

Applications

• Warren Teitelman. EDIT and BREAK functions for LISP. Artificial Intelligence Memo 84, Memorandum MAC-M-264, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undated, 31 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "This memo describes some LISP functions which have been found to be extremely useful in easing the often painful process of converting the initial versions of LISP programs into final debugged code. They are part of a much larger system currently being developed but may be used as two independent packages. The break package contains a more sophisticated break function than that in the current CTSS version of LISP, which includes facilities for breaking on undefined functions as well as SUBRS and FEXPRS, plus a selective TRACE feature. The Edit package combines many of the features of the CTSS 'ed' with a knowledge of the structure of LISP (e.g., it knows about balancing parentheses). It eliminates the need to leave a LISP system to edit a function, and therefore one may edit even when track quote is exhausted. Edit will update a user's file upon request by constructing a new file containing all of the latest definitions of the functions in that file, even where some of them may currently be in the machine in compiled form."

• William A. Martin. Syntax and Display of Mathematical Expressions. Memo 85, Artificial Intelligence Project, Memorandum MAC-M-257, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, July 29, 1965, 22 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  Describes a picture compiler written in LISP running on 7090 CTSS LISP that communicated with a display program written in LISP running on a PDP-6.

• Warren Teitelman. FLIP – A Format List Processor. Artificial Intelligence Memo 87, Memorandum MAC-M-263, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1966?, 65 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "This memo describes a notation and a programming language for expressing, from within a LISP system, string manipulations such as those performed in COMIT. ..."

• Adolfo Guzmán and Harold McIntosh. A Program Feature for CONVERT. Memo 95, Artificial Intelligence Project, Memorandum MAC-M-305, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 1966, 18 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "A program feature has been constructed for CONVERT, closely modeled after the similar facility found in many versions of LISP."

• Adolfo Guzmán. Polybrick: Adventures in the Domain of Parallelepipeds : A world without perspective. Artificial Intelligence Memo 96, Project MAC Memorandum MAC-M-308, May 1966, 41 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Joel Moses. Symbolic Integration. AI Memo 97, Artificial Intelligence Project, MAC-M-310, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 10, 1966, 17 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "A program has been written which is capable of integrating all but two of the problems solved by Slagle's symbolic integration program SAINT. In contrast to SAINT, it is a purely algorithmic program and it has achieved running times two to three orders of magnitude faster than SAINT."

• Joel Moses. Symbolic Integration II. AI Memo 97a, Artificial Intelligence Project, MAC-M-327, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 13, 1966, 12 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "The current program can integrate all the problems which were solved by SAINT and also the two problems attempted by it and not solved."

• Adolfo Guzmán and Harold V. McIntosh. CONVERT. Memo 99, Artificial Intelligence Project, Memorandum MAC-M-316, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 1966, 43 pages. Also published as [Guzman and McIntosh 1966]. PDF at bitsavers.org

  "A pattern-driven symbolic manipulation language and its preprocessor (an interpreter) are presented."

• Harold V. McIntosh and Adolfo Guzmán. A Miscellany of CONVERT Programming. Artificial Intelligence Memo 130, Project MAC Memorandum MAC-M-346, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 1967, 41 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org
• Carl Hewitt. PLANNER: A Language for Proving Theorems. Artificial Intelligence Memo 137, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, July 1967, 65 pages. PDF at bitsavers.org

  Describes SCHEMATISE, "a proposal for a program that proves very elementary theorems through the use of planning", MATCHLESS, "a pattern matching program written in LISP ... most succinctly described as a cross between SNOBOL and CONVERT", and PLANNER, "a powerful tree searching language in which we could write SCHEMATISE and other tree searching theorem proving procedures".

LISP 1.5 at Stanford

There was LISP 1.5 work at Stanford on the IBM 7090 or 7094. [Steele and Gabriel 1993] say "The PDP-1 Lisp at Stanford was implemented by John McCarthy and Steve Russell." However Stephen Russell says:

"I sure don't remember anything about that. ...

While I was at Stanford, I did some work on 7090 Lisp, but worked primarily on getting the PDP-1 and PDP-6 systems to run, and keeping them running. I didn't have much to do with the PDP-6 Lisp.

Since the PDP-1 system was used as a multi-user system with only 4k PDP-1 words per user, and very non-standard IO, I don't think that it ever ran PDP-1 Lisp." [Personal communication to Paul McJones, May 15, 2005]

See also SHARE LISP 1.5.

• Horace Enea. Clock Function for LISP 1.5. AIM-4, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, August 1963, 2 pages. PDF
• H. Enea and D. Wooldridge. Algebraic Simplification. AIM-5, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, August 1963. PDF

  "Herein described are proposed and effected changes and additions to Steve Russell's Mark IV Simplify."

• Dean Wooldridge. Non-printing Compiler. AIM-6, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, August 1963, 2 pages. PDF
• S. R. Russell. Improvements in LISP Debugging. AIM-10, Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Project, December 18, 1963, 3 pages. PDF

  "Experience with writing large LISP programs and helping students learning LISP suggests that spectacular improvements can be made in this area. These improvements are partly an elimination of sloppy coding in LISP 1.5, but mostly an elaboration of DEFINE, the push down list backtrace, and the current tracing facility. Experience suggests that these improvements would reduce the number of computer runs to debug a program a third to a half."

• D. Wooldridge. An Algebraic Simplify Program in LISP. AIM-11, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, December 27, 1963. PDF

  Appendix A is a LISP source listing of the Simplify program.

• Dean E. Wooldridge. The New LISP System (LISP 1.55). AIM-13, Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Project, February 20, 1964, 4 pages. PDF

  "The new LISP system is described. Although differing only slightly it is thought to be an improvement on the old system."

• Jan Hext. An expression input routine for LISP. AIM-18, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, July 24, 1964. [Cited by Hearn 1966.] PDF
• Anthony Hearn. Computation of Algebraic Properties of Elementary Particle Reactions Using a Digital Computer. Communications of the ACM, Volume 9, Issue 8, August 1966, pages. 573-577. ACM DL

  This paper describes work performed in LISP on an IBM 7090. The help of Stephen Russell and Dean Wooldridge are acknowledged, along with "John McCarthy and the other members of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project".

SHARE LISP 1.5

Appendix I of Lisp 1.5 Programmer's Manual describes a SHARE distribution of LISP 1.5:

"The Artificial Intelligence Project at Stanford University has produced a version of LISP 1.5 to be distributed by SHARE. In the middle of February 1965 the system is complete and is available from Stanford. The system should be available from SHARE by the end of March 1965."

• LISP 1.5 for SHARE Distribution, March 1965. Source listing, printed September 20, 1967. Donated by Dennis Allison? PDF at bitsavers.org
• J. A. Campbell. Imperial College LISP Programming Guide. Circa 1966. PDF

  "The MIT LISP 1.5 evolved into LISP 1.55 in Boston, and in 1963 and 1964 some further and more utilitarian additions (see Appendix I of the reference (3.1)) by courtesy of the Artificial Intelligence Project at Stanford University turned it into LISP 1.56. The LISP 1.56 system was imported from Stanford to Imperial College in February 1965, and at various times up to August 1966 it was altered somewhat to provide a LISP 1.6 which was of greater use for several specialised problems in physics. However, to avoid alienation of non-physicists, it has since been 'de-tuned' to approximately the specification of LISP 1.56."