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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!cornell!hal
From: hal@cornell.UUCP (Hal Perkins)
Newsgroups: net.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Looking for a lisp for VM/370
Message-ID: <5867@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Dec-83 21:01:39 EST
Article-I.D.: cornell.5867
Posted: Thu Dec 22 21:01:39 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Dec-83 11:02:10 EST
References: <1077@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Organization: Cornell Computer Science
Lines: 32

A couple of years ago, IBM started marketing LISP/370, which was developed
at Yorktown Heights.  I assume this is an earlier version of the LISP system
they are currently using.  It is probably still available as an Installed
User Program (IUP)--ask your IBM salesman for details.  The only bad thing
I've heard about it is the price: a one-time fee of $10,000!  I'm told that
this is because the marketing folks figured they could only sell 3 or 4
copies to places like GM Research.  And of course at that price, they're
right.  Few universities will pay that price for something that is used
only in a few CS courses.  I think the developers tried to convince them
that if it were sold for a reasonable price they probably could easily
sell lots of copies to universities and similar places.  But the marketing
& legal types didn't believe it and they wanted to make sure they set the
price high enough to recover development costs so they wouldn't be sued for
dumping products below cost (an antitrust hassle).

At Cornell a few years ago we installed something called MTS LISP from the
University of Michigan.  We had to do some dreadful hacking to get it to
run under CMS, and it was very buggy, unstable, and unpleasant.  (For
example, the editor sometimes ran crazy and trashed storage.)  Unless it
has gotten much better in the last few years, don't bother.  We've long
since abandoned it.

Finally, I've heard rumors that some university in Tel Aviv has ported
Interlisp to an IBM 370 system.  I know nothing beyond that--not even which
operating system they use.  Larry Masinter at Xerox PARC (masinter@parc-maxc)
might know about this if it exists.  He's one of the Interlisp gurus.

Let me know if you hear of anything else.


Hal Perkins                         UUCP: {decvax|vax135|...}!cornell!hal
Cornell Computer Science            ARPA: hal@cornell  BITNET: hal@crnlcs