The Medley Interlisp Project<p>It's 1986 and you want to use Interlisp-D on your Xerox workstation. This primer will get you up to speed with booting a Lisp image, handling floppy disks, using the mouse, transferring files to a VAX, and interacting with the environment. Some of the material is obsolete but gives an idea of what it was like to use a Lisp Machine in the 1980s.</p><p><a href="http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/interlisp-d/198510_Koto/3102300_Interlisp-D_A_Friendly_Primer_Nov86.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">http://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/interl</span><span class="invisible">isp-d/198510_Koto/3102300_Interlisp-D_A_Friendly_Primer_Nov86.pdf</span></a></p><p><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/interlisp" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>interlisp</span></a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/retrocomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>retrocomputing</span></a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/LispMachine" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LispMachine</span></a></p>
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@interlisp 
This is the untold story of the Medley Interlisp project, so to speak. The paper describes the unique issues and challenges faced in reviving the system over the first 5 years of the project, and what other software preservation groups can learn from this experience.
We are happy to share the preprint and slides of the paper "The Medley Interlisp Project: Reviving a Historical Software System" by Eleanor Young et al.:
https://interlisp.org/documentation/young-ccece2025.pdf
https://interlisp.org/documentation/young-ccece2025-slides.pdf
It tells the first 5 years of the Medley Interlisp Project and discusses what other historical software recovery groups can learn from our experience. The paper was presented at IEEE CCEECE 2025 in Vancouver and accepted for publication.
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@jackdaniel @NGIZero h'mmm ... Yesterday, not for the first time, I was looking at reimplementing #InterLisp's GRAPHER library in #Clojure. It's doable, but surprisingly difficult. If there was a good Java SVG engine which allowed callbacks through JavaScript or whatever, it would be easier, and *possibly* Batik may do that.
But #CommonLisp in the browser, interacting with SVG in the browser... Now that sounds fun.
The LOOPS primer, published in 1987, captured well the essence of exploratory programming in Lisp:
The LOOPS interface provides both a programming tool and a thinking tool. As you develop a new system, each preliminary version provides an object for thought and discussion. The preliminary versions are a crucial part of the design process.
LOOPS (Lisp Object-Oriented Programming System) is the OOP extension of Interlisp.
Fugue, Interlisp-360, Lcom, XEOS.
These are some of the terms, names, and organizations in our Glossary. It's a useful resource for getting your way around Medley Interlisp. Any other terms you'd like to see defined?
The Medley Interlisp ProjectGlossaryThe names “Medley,” “Interlisp-D,” “Interlisp.org,” “Common Lisp,” etc. are often used in confusing ways. We’re talking about a lot of different things that evolved over decades. These are cemented in by usage in different publications over time. We hope this glossary of terms will help.
Vocabulary and relationships AltoLisp An (unsuccessful) attempt to build a Lisp-based OS for running Interlisp on an Alto. Carol, Fugue, Harmony, Intermezzo, Koto, Lyric, Medley Named releases of Interlisp-D. All are obsolete except Medley. Common Lisp The subject of a 10-year standards process to converge multiple dialects of the Lisp language. Strong influences from many Lisp dialects, including Interlisp. Common Lisp the Language Book by Guy Steele with two editions: CLtL1 – edition 1, 465 pages CLtL2 – second edition, 1029 pages Common Lisp dpANS The ANSI Standard for Common Lisp. Starting with the Lyric release of Interlisp-D and then the Medley release, the implementation of Medley included implementations of Common Lisp (CLtL 1) as well as the Interlisp dialect in a single development environment; this was made possible by using the (Common Lisp) “package” feature to allow both dialects to be intermixed.
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@screwlisp One of the things which was most exciting to me in the #InterLisp D environment was the ease of producing dynamic, interactive graphs. I don't know any modern software environment which does it so well.
The newsletter Hotline was a support resource Xerox published in the late 1980s for users of Xerox Lisp (Interlisp and Common Lisp). It featured tutorials, usage tips, fixes, and more that are still valuable to Medley users.
bitsavers.orgIndex of /pdf/xerox/interlisp-d/hotline