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\F1\CFeb 22, 1981


Dr. David L. Nelson
Vice-President, Systems Development
Apollo Computer, Inc.
5 Executive Park Drive
N. Billerica MA 01862


Dear Dr. Nelson:

\J
It was a pleasure to talk with you about the Domain machine. From all indications
you have an elegant product that will support my  LISP effort.
My  concern is  whether the Pascal
compiler will produce code of sufficient quality for LISP's implementation.
Let us assume that this kind of question can be resolved satisfactorily;
what, then, could be a mutually profitable arrangement for developing  TLC's
LISP?

As I mentioned on the phone, I am receiving a grant from the Navy group that
sponsored the UCSD Pascal effort. This is quite encouraging since a major
motivation for establishing The LISP Company was to develop a \F3de facto\F1
standard LISP in a manner similar to that of UCSD. I have designed 
and implemented
a  healthy dialect of MacLISP/LISP machine LISP that runs on Z-80-based systems,
and have extended that implementation to run with extended addressing
 (18-bit addresses). A prototype display-based programming environment is being
implemented now. This extended system will supply approximately 1/3 of a KA-10
to run LISP --both in speed and space--
for about $6K, quantity-one retail hardware price.
Though quite useful for medium-sized  projects, large scale applications
require larger address spaces, more powerful LISPs, and  more elegant 
program development systems. This is what brought the Navy to
me and brings me to Apollo.

The initial Navy grant is to port the existing
TLC language from the Z-80 onto the 68000.  This will  give the current TLC 
users an immediate boost in processing power. This improved performance is 
necessary for  several  military projects; the one driving this effort is the
introduction of several thousands LISP processors as nodes in an intelligent
CAI effort to train Naval personnel.  As an aside, part of this project involves
highly interactive color graphics presentations; your plans for extended
display capability should be an additional attraction.

After the opening phase of porting the language,
I plan to enhance the language, adding more of the traditional language
artificats as well as integrating several of the Smalltalk-spawned  ideas
related to objects and classes.
Within this latter context, I expect to add a second generation of the
programming environment, and here I expect an advanced  window-system
will play a crucial role.  In short, then, TLC will be a major force in developing
LISP as a commercial tool.

Of further interest, I am teaching a LISP seminar and workshop
at the Western Institute
in Computer Science this summer (July 6-10) at Santa Clara University.
This Institute, organized by the founders of the Santa Cruz CS Institute,
will include courses in VLSI design, ADA, Operating systems, and data base
design, as well as the LISP class. Drs. Larry Masinter and John McCarthy will
be joining me in teaching  a group of about forty people involved in developing
industrial AI programs; each day will include at least four hours of active
computer usage of LISP. It occurs to me that it could be quite advantageous
to Apollo to have a LISP system available for that session. I believe that
I could port and develop reasonably enhanced version of TLC LISP in 
that time-span. 

I believe that these two issues 
--the availability  of Apollo LISP to the Navy projects,
and the introduction of Apollo to the Institute LISP personnel--
contain the basis for a mutually attractive  cooperative venture.
I would 
suggest the loan, lease, or substantial discount 
on Apollo machines to support the project,
for a  major problem for TLC is funding. The intial Navy grant  was funded 
"between the cracks" in a very tight budget, sufficient for one machine and
one modest FTE. To move effectively on this project, I need to support
a larger staff; funds not allocated for machines can be redistributed for 
salaries.

Staffing of LISP/AI projects is quite difficult now; few LISP programmers
exist 
and even fewer are fluent in LISP implementation details. I am 
indoctrinating two people into the 
art of LISP implementation  now as part
my lectureship at Santa Clara University; those people 
are beginning with  the
Z-80 projects and 
will move to the 68K. I expect to attract a few Stanford people
for the 68K project, but that will require a facility in the Palo Alto area,
and that requires more funds. I am considering a bank loan to 
cover these costs, but  currently  am severely limited financially.

Also, perhaps of future interest are my continuing plans for exploiting the
educational application of LISP. I am currently a lecturer at Santa Clara
University in the EECS department, and my wife  is a full-time professor in 
the same  department. We have been actively pursuing a program utilizing
LISP ideas. I am  preparing to teach an experimental computer
science course  this spring. A draft of an article prepared for the Santa
Clara student newspaper is enclosed; though informal, its content is 
 accurate. I will be  teaching  a  more intense version of this material
to a faculty workshop in the Humanities and Sciences schools. From this
experience I will develop an introductory course for entering students.
From the Summer Institute experience, I will develop a
course for computer science students.
I envision these programs resulting in  a demand for several Apollo-like
machines in the near future, and larger numbers later as cost diminishes
and demand grows.

I hope this letter and the attached material adds perspective to our
 conversations. I believe that Apollo and TLC have substantial grounds
for cooperation; I hope we can come to an argeement
soon. If you would like further information, please call. I'm  including
several possible phone numbers, since my schedule 
covers a wide area of Santa Clara Valley.
\.
\←L\→S\←R\-L\/'2;\+L\→L

Yours sincerely,


John R. Allen
The LISP Co.
18215 Bayview Dr.
Los Gatos Ca, 95030
(408) 353-2227 --TLC
(408) 984-4358 --Santa Clara University: Dr. Ruth Davis
(408) 984-4482 --Santa Clara University: EECS office
(408) 353-3857 --home

\←S\→L

\JBy the way, I discussed your machine with a friend at George Lucas's
film studio; you may hear from them.
\.