Close encounters of the CADR kind

Noel Chiappa jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Mon Jan 16 08:27:26 CST 2017


    > From: Lars Brinkhoff

    > http://i0.wp.com/futurewavewebdevelopment.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mertz01-2514878-8.jpg

That might actually be the CONS Machine (effectively a prototype CADR);
Greenblatt looks awfully young in that picture! Also, I don't recall him
being super-involved in the CADR work. (You might ask him which it is!) 

The CONS CPU backplane is apparently now at the CHM:

  http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102647223

My memory of the CONS machine is that, like the Chess Machine, it was a
special purpose CPU hung off the AI PDP-10. (Or maybe the Chess Machine was
attached to MC? I forget.) However, while that may have been its state early
on, in reviewing some CONS documents I discovered that it was eventually
given a keyboard and display, although it did remain hooked up to the PDP-10.

The CONS machine is described in 3 AI Lab publications: Working Paper #79,
Working Paper #80 ("CONS", by Tom Knight), and Memo #444 ("LISP Machine
Progress Report"), The first is available here:

  http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/mit/cadr/Greenblatt-The_LISP_Machine-1975.pdf

but it's just an architecture document. Memo #444 has an extensive "Current
Status - August 1977" section, which gives more info about the CONS machine as
built.

	Noel


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