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![A newspaper clipping with a photo of Russel Noftsker that says:
AI superstar plunges to earth
Knowledge-based expert systems delivered on symbolic processing machines are "a trend that I'd say is unstoppable at this point."
Russel Noftsker
Chairman, Symbolics, Inc.
February 1986
"I don't want to see the company fail. I don't want to see any more employees lose their jobs."
Noftsker
February 1988
BY CLINTON WILDER
and STANLEY GIBSON
CW STAFF
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Like Icarus, Symbolics, Inc. thought there was no limit to how high... [the picture cuts off]
Its technology was the envy of that sexy new industry, artificial intelligence, and its rapid climb to the $100 million revenue level in 1986 earned it acclaim as "a stock market superstar."
Now mired in red ink and leaderless -- its founders having been eased out of control -- the firm stands as a classic case of missed opportunities, overreaching ambition and market insensitivity.
"Success can be seductive," said Barbara Isgur, a technology analyst with D. H. Brown Associates in Tarrytown, N.Y.
"It's hard to know when to turn the corner or change direction. I can't think of a company that's been able to do that without a lot of pain," Isgur said.
Symbolics -- which sprang up at the forefront of an indus-[the picture cuts off]](https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonie/media_attachments/files/114/235/950/790/971/333/original/a9a70d42bebacc9a.png "A newspaper clipping with a photo of Russel Noftsker that says:
AI superstar plunges to earth
Knowledge-based expert systems delivered on symbolic processing machines are \"a trend that I'd say is unstoppable at this point.\"
Russel Noftsker
Chairman, Symbolics, Inc.
February 1986
\"I don't want to see the company fail. I don't want to see any more employees lose their jobs.\"
Noftsker
February 1988
BY CLINTON WILDER
and STANLEY GIBSON
CW STAFF
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Like Icarus, Symbolics, Inc. thought there was no limit to how high... [the picture cuts off]
Its technology was the envy of that sexy new industry, artificial intelligence, and its rapid climb to the $100 million revenue level in 1986 earned it acclaim as \"a stock market superstar.\"
Now mired in red ink and leaderless -- its founders having been eased out of control -- the firm stands as a classic case of missed opportunities, overreaching ambition and market insensitivity.
\"Success can be seductive,\" said Barbara Isgur, a technology analyst with D. H. Brown Associates in Tarrytown, N.Y.
\"It's hard to know when to turn the corner or change direction. I can't think of a company that's been able to do that without a lot of pain,\" Isgur said.
Symbolics -- which sprang up at the forefront of an indus-[the picture cuts off]")
"The mix-in revolution: How an ice cream innovator in Somerville influenced Lisp pioneers at the MIT AI Lab—and made a lasting mark on programming."
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111238/the-mix-in-revolution/
David A. Moon was one of the founders of Symbolics and one of the chief architects of its Lisp machines. In 1991, after he left Symbolics and joined Apple, he wrote this retrospective of Genera, "the world's first commercial object-oriented operating system": https://archive.org/details/genera-retrospective-1991
I have scanned and uploaded a manual for #Symbolics S-Dynamics, version 6 from 1985: https://archive.org/details/symbolics-s-dynamics-manual
"[It] is a software system that lets you describe and control the scheduling and synchronization of events in time [...] used in conjunction with S-Geometry and S-Render to script animated computer graphics."
The Register published this fascinating article. It's a reread of the history of computing with a focus on Lisp, Lisp Machines, and early workstations:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/25/the_war_of_the_workstations
Isn’t someone out there working on a modern version of #lispMachines?
Question posted to Hacker News:
Ask HN: What Were the Differences Between Symbolics Genera and Xerox Interlisp-D
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36713595
LispM.de is the library of Alexandria of Lisp.
It's an incredible historical archive on Lisp systems and dialects with a focus on Symbolics Lisp Machines. It hosts countless manuals, research papers and publications, screenshots, videos, source code, documentation, articles, data, links, and other rare material.
Medley Interlisp has the most tightly integrated combination of system software, application platform, programming language, development environment, tools, and runtime platform I've ever experienced.
A rare "whole greater than the sum of its parts" level of synergy mostly seen only on Smalltalk workstations and Lisp Machines.
I know there are countless gems buried in the depths of @internetarchive but I was stunned when I run across this rare book about Symbolics Lisp Machines, "Lisp Lore: A Guide to Programming the Lisp Machine" by Hank Bromley:
Chaosnet: The #Lisp Machine network protocol that was beat by TCP/IP
"The only really visible remnant of #Chaosnet is the CH DNS class. There’s something about that fact that I find strangely fascinating. The CH class is a vestigial ghost of an alternative network protocol in a world that has long since settled on TCP/IP. It’s exciting, at least to me, to know that the last traces of Chaosnet still lurk out there in the infrastructure of our networked society. The CH DNS class is a fun artifact of digital archaeology. But it’s also a living reminder that the internet was not born fully formed, that TCP/IP is not the only way to connect computers to each other, and that “the internet” is far from the coolest name we could have had for our global communication system."
If you're into retrocomputing stop what you're doing and check out Medley Interlisp, a restoration of the software environment of Xerox Lisp Machines rehosted on modern systems.
It's the most fascinating and advanced software development environment I've ever seen. I posted about my first impressions, why I love Medley Interlisp, and how I plan to use it:
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/my-encounter-with-medley-interlisp