Re: Looking for MACLSP compatibility

[chucko@kronos-ethernet.arc.nasa.gov (Chuck Fry )]

In article <gsharp.1.002E98CF@primenet.com>,
Greg Sharp <gsharp@primenet.com> wrote:
>There was a version of lisp in the early seventies called MACLSP - anyone 
>heard of it?  What current flavor of Lisp comes closest to it (has statements 
>like "FEXPR" and  "declare")?

That was Maclisp, spawned by MIT's Project MAC and the AI Lab.
Initial implementations ran on the PDP-6 and -10.  It fathered a host
of derivatives, including the Rutgers/UCI Lisp I used in college
almost 2 decades ago, Franz Lisp (not to be confused with Franz Inc.'s
Allegro Common Lisp), and Lisp Machine Lisp.  And Maclisp was
certainly a major source of ideas for Common Lisp.

One of Maclisp's major features was the ability to compile into
efficient machine code.  As such it was the first major Lisp dialect
for which efficient use of machine resources on stock hardware was a
priority.  (If you can call the PDP-10 "stock hardware"; the halfword
instructions were purportedly intended for Lisp, so that a cons cell
could fit into a single 36-bit word, and be split up efficiently.)

If you're looking for a Maclisp compatibility package for Common Lisp,
you should check the FAQ posted weekly in comp.lang.lisp.
 -- Chuck
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 Chuck Fry  Work: chucko@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov  Play: chucko@rahul.net
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