[PRL] AI Koans

[Philippe Meunier]

Galen Williamson <gwilliam at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>Actually, a few years back, Lars discovered that we have a number of Lisp
>machines in cold storage somewhere.  Only our inability to find OS tapes
>prevented us from trying to resurrect it.  I believe there is still a box
>of Symbolics manuals on the shelf above the couch in Egan 222.

Apparently, yes.

"Richard C. Cobbe" <cobbe at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>I've heard a number of people with many years of experience rave about
>how wonderful the old Lisp machines were, and how much better they were
>than these silly little OSes we have to use today, and so forth.  I have
>to admit, I tend to react to these folks in the same way that I react to
>stories about walking 10 miles to school through the snow uphill both
>ways, but it would be interesting to actually sit down at a Lisp machine
>and see what it was like, if for no other reason than to see what all
>the shouting's about.

I was actually randomly talking with one of my roommates last night
(he's a Phd student at MIT's LCS) and he told me there's an "old
professor" at MIT who has two of them in his office and still uses
them as his desktop computers.  He couldn't remember the name of the
guy, though, although I could probably poke him some more about
that...

>(If all else fails, I believe Shriram still has that old lisp machine in
>his office at Brown, though I make no claims as to its condition, the
>availability of its system software, Shriram's willingness to loan it to
>us, or the feasibility of getting it up here.)

The manuals for that machine are actually in Egan 222, on the shelf
above Viera's desk.

Philippe