[LMH]Interlisp-D release dates

[Al Kossow]

I've started to read the hundreds of 1186 and 1108 floppies that
I have to get them in a more stable form than dozens of cardboard
boxes full of floppy disc boxes. Since the list has been quiet the
last few days, I thought I'd post a message from '91 which sort of
describes the release history.

Unfortunately, Xerox never really documented the D-Machines or 
their Lisp implementation at the user level like TI did..

---



From: Michel_Denber.WBST147@xerox.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.xerox
Subject: Re: The history of the Interlisp Programming Environment
Message-ID: <91Oct29.070952pst.11730@alpha.xerox.com>
Date: 28 Oct 91 23:09:32 GMT
References: Michel_Denber.WBST147@xerox.com
Sender: info-1100-request@cis.ohio-state.edu
Organization: Info-1100 Mailing List
Lines: 68



	"There were a couple of Interlisp-D versions around. For example the
Koto release and the Lyrics release"

More than a couple.  At first, new releases had no formal names - they were
simply announced via mail messages.  For example:

-------

Date: 24 FEB 1982 2139-PST
From: MASINTER.PA
Subject: Newer version of Interlisp-D available
To: LispUsers^

A slightly newer version of the Interlisp-D system has been stored on file
servers Phylum, Indigo, Rose and Cask, including, on the directory
<Lisp>Current>, the files

Lisp.run, Lisp.sysout, DolphinLispMC.Run.

-------

I believe the first named release was called "ConBrio", dating to mid-1982.
This was followed by "Wind", which was a pre-release version of "Chorus", which
was released 1/13/83.  Chrous recoded most of the low-level BCPL code in Lisp.
The window package was completely revised and floating point moved to
microcode.

The next release was Fugue.0 (6/30/83).  Fugue.1 was never released.  Fugue.2
came out 8/18/83, and Fugue.3 came out 10/13/83.  Fugue marked the addition of
multi-processing and NS support.  Chat and DEdit were promoted from Lispusers
to the base system.

The next major release was Carol, on Jan. 27, 1984.  This included a local file
system for Dandelions.  Carol.1 came out 3/2/84.  The official Carol
announcement was June 21, 1984.

Next came Intermezzo, in early 1985.  Intermezzo included a new TEdit format,
NS Chat, and expanded vmem to 32 meg.  By this point, the documentation was
starting to look "official".  Koto came out later in 1985 and included the
first edition of the integrated IRM  (until then, the documentation was the old
Interlisp-10 manual of Oct. 1978, plus a "D" supplement.

Lyric came out in early 1987 and had major changes, including a compiler
incompatibility.  Compiled files were renamed ".LCOM" from ".DCOM".  Fonts and
streams underwent major revisions too in Lyric.  Common Lisp was included.
SEdit was included (although it was available as a Lispusers package for Koto).
The language was now called "Xerox Lisp".

Around that time, Xerox spun off the Lisp group into the ill-fated Envos Corp.,
which released Medley.  Medley 1.1 came out in January 1989, 1.2 last year, and
2.0 just a few months ago.  Medley was the first release to run on Suns.  I
understand that there will be no more new names, just incremented version
numbers.

	"When was the graphical user interface added and what is the name of
the interface?"

I believe this goes clear back to the very beginning of time, i.e. the
legendary Alto Lisp (I tried loading it once, but couldn't get it to run.
Larry Masinter tells me it did work, although it had performance problems - not
too surprising considering the Alto-II had only 256K memory and 4 meg. of
disk).  The basic window system as it exists today was certainly all there by
1982 when the 1100 (Dolphin) came out.  The graphic interface is basic to the
system - I don't think it has a separate name.  In the Sept. 1982 Interlisp-D
User's Guide, it's simply called "graphics display and window system".

			- Michel


From: Lovstrand@europarc.xerox.com (Lennart Lovstrand)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.xerox
Subject: Re: The history of the Interlisp Programming Environment
Message-ID: <199110291619.AA08985@mega.EuroPARC.Xerox.COM>
Date: 29 Oct 91 00:19:47 GMT
Sender: info-1100-request@cis.ohio-state.edu
Organization: Info-1100 Mailing List
Lines: 23


Michel,

Great summary!  Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there also a
Harmony version between Carol and Intermezzo?  I think TEdit was
pretty new then (and very buggy -- it was hard to believe that it
would ever be a serious editor at that time).  I also seem to
remember an internal release in time for IJCAI in 1985 called "JCAI"
to fill in for the missing J version.

Then there was also BBN Lisp and/or Interlisp-10 for the DECsystem-10
and 20 and even a version for the IBM 360.  I can't remember if they
had any version numbers or names, though.  In any case, that was
before Interlisp became a Xerox product.

DEdit was the structure editor of choice before SEdit.  It was
modelled after a TTY version that existed in Interlisp-10.  It had
commands like "remove the 3rd element from the 2nd subexpression" and
"go up to levels and then prettyprint the current expression" -- all
with numbers and [mostly] single letter commands.  And yes, it was
actually really useful if you didn't have a screen based editor.
Took a bit of getting used to, though.

--Lennart