Lisp Machines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Lambda

Lisp Machines, Inc. was a company formed in 1979 by Richard Greenblatt of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to build Lisp machines. It was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Its history is intertwined with that of Lisp machines in general and with Symbolics Inc., and is summarized in the Lisp machine article.

[edit] Folklore about LMI

The following parable-like story is told about LMI:

The people at the lab came together, and together created a true hacker's machine, the original Lisp Machines. When Russell Noftsker suggested that they move on, and spread the gospel beyond the walls of the lab, the hackers at the lab differed wildly in how they wanted the company run.

Greenblatt insisted that the company remain true to the hacker spirit, in that it should bow to no one, and focus solely on the creation of a good product. Some other hackers felt that this was not the way to lead a company. If this was done, it would never grow and truly spread the word of the hacker ethic. Furthermore, Greenblatt demanded control over the company, to ensure that his vision was carried forth. Others (including Bill Gosper and Tom Knight) felt that to be under the rule of Greenblatt was unacceptable.

Greenblatt formed his own company, Lisp Machines Incorporated (LMI). The other hackers spun off the famous Symbolics. True enough, LMI remained relatively unknown.

[edit] GigaMos Systems

LMI was reincarnated as GigaMos Systems and included Mr. Greenblatt in its officers. GigaMos, through the ownership of a Canadian backer named Guy Montpetit, bought the assets of LMI through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. GigaMos created a new Lisp machine called the "K-machine" which used a RISC-based architecture with a 40 bit word size akin to Symbolic's Ivory. Mr. Montpetit subsequently became embroiled in a 1989 Canadian political scandal which, as a side-effect, resulted in the seizure of all the assets of GigaMos effectively killing the company since it could no longer meet payroll.