This report describes research done at the Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Support for the
laboratory's artificial intelligence research is provided in part by the
Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under Office
of Naval Research Contract number N00014-80-C-0505.
The Lisp Machine manual describes both the language and the operating system of the Lisp Machine. The language, a dialect of Lisp called Zetalisp, is completely documented by this manual. The software environment and operating-system-like parts of the system contain many things which are still in a state of flux. This manual confines itself primarily to the stabler parts of the system. It describes how to program, but not for the most part how to operate the machine. The window system is documented separately in the Lisp Machine Window System manual.
Any comments, suggestions, or criticisms will be welcomed. Please send Arpa network mail to BUG-LMMAN@MIT-MC.
Those not on the Arpanet may send U.S. mail to
Portions of this manual were written by Mike McMahon and Alan Bawden. The chapter on the LOOP iteration macro is mostly a reprint of Laboratory for Computer Science memo TM-169, by Glenn Burke. Sarah Smith, Meryl Cohen and Richard Ingria of LMI, and Richard Mlynarik of MIT, helped to correct the manual.
The Lisp Machine is a product of the efforts of many people too numerous to list here and of the former unique unbureaucratic, free-wheeling and cooperative environment of the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. I believe that the commercialization of computer software has harmed the spirit which enabled such systems to be developed. Now I am attempting to build a software-sharing movement to revive that spirit from near oblivion.
Since January 1984 I have been working primarily on the development of GNU, a complete Unix-compatible software system for standard hardware architectures, to be shared freely with everyone just like EMACS. This will enable people to use computers and be good neighbors legally (a good neighbor allows his neighbors to copy any generally useful software he has a copy of). This project has inspired a growing movement of enthusiastic supporters. Just recently the first free portable C compiler compiled itself. If you would like to contribute to GNU, write to me at the address above. Restrain social decay--help get programmers sharing again.