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\F1\COctober 16, 1979

	

Dr. Dieter Kolb
Siemens AG,
Bereich Daten- und Informationssysteme
Otto-Hahn-Ring 6
8000 Muchen 83


Dear Dr. Kolb:

\J
Thank you for your letter of July 27, 1979. I apologize for 
being so tardy in responding; when your letter arrived, I had given up
on the idea of a LISP conference. 
I had been trying to interest the LISP community in this conference
since last December! Response had been very slow. It wasn't at all clear that
such a conference would have sufficient support to even get started.
Your's was the first letter since March  that held out any hope.
In September I tried once again to organize the conference, this time
with success. 

I should realize by now that LISP people are quite difficult to organize;
I wrote \F5Anatomy of LISP\F1 because such a book was needed and no one else
would write it; I wrote a pro-LISP/anti-Pascal editorial for BYTE magazine
and guest-edited a special issue of BYTE on LISP because the personal computer
people were being indoctrinated into the Pascal way of thinking, and  
it was very important that they understand what LISP is about.
I have formed a LISP User's Group for the home-computer advocate, and
publish a small newsletter for them.
Now I have formed my own small company, The LISP Company
(T .(L . C)),  to produce LISP-related systems
for personal computers. We now have a version of the
MIT LISP Machine LISP available on the Z-80, and soon another
machine. Perhaps your people at Siemens would find this
interesting? 

As the above indicates, I find LISP a very attractive language; I see this
conference as an excellent vehicle to widen and enlighten the general
computer  community/industry regarding the benefits  of LISP.

Thank you again for you encouragement.
\.
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Yours sincerely,



John R. Allen
18215 Bayview Dr.
Los Gatos Ca, 95030

Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab
Computer Science Dept.
Stanford University
Stanford, Ca 94305
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