Integrate history of interlisp from info-1100 into Interlisp timeline, and add missing biblography entries.

[masinter]

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lispcore/30CA2998-68DB-4FA9-9320-BE2A2F3F2F31%40anzus.com

has some interesting dates and also bibliography entries. Some of the discussion might be woven into the timeline.

[pamoroso]

I reviewed the original thread and found the following items that are missing from or ordered differently in the timeline. Wherever possible I cross-checked the dates with the release notes and documents in Zotero.

• ConBrio: mid-1982
• Wind: pre-release version of Chorus. I would place it in 1982 since the first couple of weeks of 1983 prior to Chorus may not have been enough for putting together a pre-release.
• Chorus: 1/13/83
• Fugue.0: 6/30/83
• Fugue.1: never released
• Fugue.2: 8/18/83
• Fugue.3: 10/13/83
• Carol: Jan 27, 1984
• Carol.1: 3/2/84
• official Carol announcement: Jun 21, 1984
• Intermezzo: early 1985
• JCAI: internal version, 1985. Mentioned by Lennart Lovstrand, who placed it in 1985, and Dave Newman who placed it in 1986. I'm leaning towards the former as the later Koto was released in 1985.
• Koto: later in 1985. Dec 1985 according to the Koto release notes.
• Lyric: early 1987. Jun 1987 according to the Lyric release notes.
• Xerox spun off the Lisp group into Envos Corp: 1987. This happened "around that time", i.e. likely in 1987 as implied by the context of Michel's post. The current timeline places this in 1989.
• Medley 1.1: January 1989
• Medley 1.2: 1990. October 1990 according to the 1.2-S release notes.
• Medley 2.0: 1991. The current timeline places this in 1992.

The papers and publications mentioned in the thread are already in Zotero and none seem to be missing.

I can take care of integrating this information into the timeline.

[masinter]

The dates in the current timeline needed validation. I read somewhere (I don't remember where) that Teitelman's "History of Interlisp" (which he wrote after he left PARC) had some errors, but I don't remember if it was of facts or dates or attribution?.

This kind of research is helpful in understanding the chronology of dissemination of ideas.

The CHM PARC Archives were for the IFS (Alto-based Interim File Server) backups.

@ekaltman

[Anzus]

IJCAI was held in alternate years, there was one in 1985 in Pasadena but not one in 86. I think that release was to provide a stable version optimized for the demo’s on the trade floor, never really made it out to customers.

…

On Mar 2, 2024, at 3:36 PM, Paolo Amoroso ***@***.***> wrote: I reviewed the original thread and found the following items that are missing from or ordered differently in the timeline. Wherever possible I cross-checked the dates with the release notes and documents in Zotero. • ConBrio: mid-1982 • Wind: pre-release version of Chorus. I would place it in 1982 since the first couple of weeks of 1983 prior to Chorus may not have been enough for putting together a pre-release. • Chorus: 1/13/83 • Fugue.0: 6/30/83 • Fugue.1: never released • Fugue.2: 8/18/83 • Fugue.3: 10/13/83 • Carol: Jan 27, 1984 • Carol.1: 3/2/84 • official Carol announcement: Jun 21, 1984 • Intermezzo: early 1985 • JCAI: internal version, 1985. Mentioned by Lennart Lovstrand, who placed it in 1985, and Dave Newman who placed it in 1986. I'm leaning towards the former as the later Koto was released in 1985. • Koto: later in 1985. Dec 1985 according to the Koto release notes. • Lyric: early 1987. Jun 1987 according to the Lyric release notes. • Xerox spun off the Lisp group into Envos Corp: 1987. This happened "around that time", i.e. likely in 1987 as implied by the context of Michel's post. The current timeline places this in 1989. • Medley 1.1: January 1989 • Medley 1.2: 1990. October 1990 according to the 1.2-S release notes. • Medley 2.0: 1991. The current timeline places this in 1992. The papers and publications mentioned in the thread are already in Zotero and none seem to be missing. I can take care of integrating this information into the timeline. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[pamoroso]

Is it better to update the timeline incrementally as we gather new information from sources like the original thread, or defer until we can validate all the information?

[masinter]

Wikipedia's rules are that updates contain confirming citations.
I think that's a good plan here.

[pamoroso]

Some official sources confirm a few of the dates mentioned in the thread, here are the relevant citations:

• Koto: December 1985 according to Koto INTERLISP-D RELEASE NOTES
• Lyric: June 1987 according to XEROX LISP RELEASE NOTES
• Medley 1.2: October 1990 according to MEDLEY 1.2-S RELEASE NOTES

The rest of the dates in the thread are supported by indirect or second hand sources. I'll look for additional first hand sources and confirming citations in the CHM PARC archives, particularly under eris > lisp and erinyes > lisp.

[pamoroso]

In the CHM PARC archives I found a number of Xerox release notes and announcements that confirm or reveal some more release dates:

• Fugue.0: 30 Jun 1983. Source: announcement email with subject "Fugue.3 version of Interlisp-D now available", CHM PARC archives, erinyes > lisp > fugue.6 > doc > .FUGUE3RELEASE.TXT.
• Fugue.1: not released. Source: announcement email with subject "Fugue.3 version of Interlisp-D now available", CHM PARC archives, erinyes > lisp > fugue.6 > doc > .FUGUE3RELEASE.TXT.
• Fugue.2: 18 Aug 1983. Source: announcement email with subject "Fugue.3 version of Interlisp-D now available", CHM PARC archives, erinyes > lisp > fugue.6 > doc > .FUGUE3RELEASE.TXT.
• Carol prerelease: 27 Jan 1984. Source: announcement email with subject "New Interlisp-D now available", CHM PARC archives, erinyes > lisp > fugue.6 > doc > .CAROLRELEASE.TEDIT.
• Carol.1: 8 Mar 1984. Source: announcement email with subject "New Interlisp-D now available", CHM PARC archives, erinyes > lisp > fugue.6 > doc > .CAROL1RELEASE.TEDIT.
• Fugue.6: 9 Mar, 20 Mar 1984. Source for the first date: release notes document titled "Fugue.6 Release Notes", CHM PARC archives, erinyes > lisp > fugue.6 > doc > .Fugue6Release.bravo. Source for the second date: cover letter with subject "Fugue.6 Release", CHM PARC archives, erinyes > lisp > fugue.6 > doc > .Fugue6CoverLetter.bravo.

Release notes or announcements are available for a few more releases but the dates are unfortunately missing.

[MattHeffron]

@masinter & @hjellinek
Are these still TBD?
Would they properly be part of Eleanor & Abhik's domain of work?

[masinter]

I think the work here is still to be done, with coordination just to keep from stepping on each other's work.

@MattHeffron jellinek and @ekaltman @abhikhasnain1 @Catillamen

We have several different timelines -- the bibliography as a timeline, various events, and other events outside of our focus that are still important for understanding the context -- release of Star, introduction of various D-machines, the software archives we have in the 'history' repository, release of Apple Lisa Macintosh, release of Apple User Interface Guidelines, Symbolics 3600...

The Information Visualizer work of George Robertson and Stu Card etc. ... was that done in Lisp? There are some IRIS Interlisp files...

[hjellinek]

The original Info Visualizer work was done in Mac Common Lisp, I think. Subsequent versions ran on other hardware and software.

I wrote my portion of the Info Visualization project, InfoGrid, in Common Lisp (Franz?) and CLIM, running under X on Sun SPARC hardware.

Greg Nuyens wrote the Iris code for a demo at AAAI in Austin - I can't remember the year

[MattHeffron]

@hjellinek The AAAI in Austin was 1984