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\F1\CJan 30, 1981




Mr. G. Moretti
Signetics Corporation
811 E. Arques Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA. 94086


Dear Gabe:

\J
As I mentioned on the phone last week, I have prepared a short overview
of the burgeoning AI/LISP market. What I didn't mention was
the forthcoming Navy contract to develop The LISP Company's
version of LISP for the MC68000. This is discussed below in more detail.
Please treat this information as confidential, releasing it to those
people who "need to know", i.e. could
make decisions about the proposed venture.  
Coupled with  this development is a series of courses
of mine on LISP-related activities. Of particular interest is the Western
Institute in Computer Science LISP course that I will give this summer
at Santa Clara University. This Institute is run by the people who used to 
run the UC Santa Cruz Institute. The Institute will include ADA, VLSI,
operating systems, and data base courses by major contributors in the fields.
The LISP class will be directed to 
people in industry, actively pursuing Artitficial Intelligence
products; those participants will be involved in the
decisions to purchase equipment. Since applied AI is
growing by "leaps and bounds", there would be substantial benefits 
to the manufacturer who was
able to supply cost-effective LISP machines for this class.

My major concern now is to put in place
an organization that will support this LISP effort, making it the
\F2de facto\F1 standard LISP. The Navy has put that
effort in motion, but the total project requires more support than TLC
itself can muster. Thus I am recruiting support
from Signetics and/or Philips. The following
paragraphs outline some of the possible benefits accrued from taking a
strong LISP/AI stance.
\.


\F3\CConsiderations favoring LISP on "personal machines".
\F1
\JThe computing community is changing. 
Not long ago LISP was considered to
be a "special purpose list-processing language" used
exclusively by the Artificial Intelligence community, 
requiring very large expensive computing machinery on which to run.
Now LISP is employed to write such varied things as operating systems and 
CAD systems, and is used in several countries to
teach computer science
principles. For the last several years, Japan has had an extremely active
commercial AI effort; now that phenomenon has come to the United States.
Artificial intelligence people are now in high demand
in industry, and  technology is now supplying computing devices that will
support inexpensive high-quality  LISP systems. This note relects on some of the
opportunities that await those who accept the challenge and offer such LISP
systems to the marketplace.

Because of increasing sophistication in applications
and improved cost/performance in computing tools, there has 
been a substantially
increased
interest in the commercial applications of Artificial Intelligence. Corporations,
such as Schlumberger, IBM, CDC, and Texas Instruments, 
have well-established AI commitments.

As a result of this commercialization of AI,
it has become increasingly difficult to locate trained  AI personnel. 
Both the universities and corporations recognize that the success of
industrial AI work
is dependent on an increased pool of people knowledgeable  in AI techniques.
Since the major implementation  language for AI work is LISP, we will see increasing
demand for LISP systems in both the educational and industrial areas.

Two multi-million dollar corporations, 
Symbolics and LMI, have been formed to market versions
of the MIT LISP machine. These computers sell in the $100,000 to $200,000
range and are attractive to those corporations currently involved in AI
research. The long-term market for LISP-based processors is the low-cost
readily accessible product. Such machines will be attractive in two basic
configurations: first, as
"turnkey" applied AI packages were the consumer neither knows nor cares
that LISP is involved; such applications include
intelligent CAD systems that understand design rules;
CAI systems that undertand the topic under investigation; "expert systems"
that can operate at at expert level is specialized domains like
chemistry, genetics, medicine, and structural engineering; intelligent
control systems for robots; large-scale algebraic manipulations systems
(like MACSYMA);
and natural language interfaces to complex data base applications.

The second LISP market involves supplying  these low-cost machines 
to those developing  LISP applications. Besides the research laboratories,
this facet of the market includes the educational institutions.
Given access to  inexpensive, professional LISP
systems, the educational market promises to become a substantial force.
The general characteristics of these machines are clear; 
a personal machine  with: a substantial
computational power; a (very) large address space; highly interactive
graphics-based display system; network orientation to support communication
and sharing of information or  resources. Such machines have been used for 
several years in research institutions. Now technology allows them to become
commercially viable. As a result,
several groups are anticipating the availability of such machines.

The US Navy has begun staffing a large AI R&D effort, recognizing
the application of AI techniques in the education and training 
of Naval personnel. In particular,
the Naval Personnel Research and Development Center has indicated substantial
interest in personal LISP machines to support computer-assisted instruction.
They forsee LISP-based machines supporting the training  of personnel throughout
the Navy; they project a need of about 1000 machines per year. 
One segment --called the STEAMER Project-- of this major
effort,
has recently purchased  Z-80 systems solely
for the purpose of running LISP.  These systems are being utilized
to "off-load" parts of a LISP-based  simulation model of the
dynamics of a ship's steam boiler plant.
The ultimate target of the
Navy work is, of course, a more powerful machine
and a more powerful LISP. 

In particular,
the  group that funded the UCSD Pascal effort 
 wants an extended version of TLC LISP on the 68000. 
That is, they will be funding me
to "do for LISP, what UCSD did for Pascal". 
As you may recall, Gabe,
that was my initial motivation when I left Signetics two years ago.
Considering the Navy's commitment to AI, and the effect their Pascal
effort had on micro computing, this TLC project
will have a substantial impact on the AI field.

STEAMER  is only one segment of  applied AI currently
being done on small machines:
there is another  user in the mid-West (doing Air Force work) using
LISP to implement a natural language data-base retrieval system
for automated drafting. I have sold several CP/M-based LISPs to 
R&D-oriented  organizations for such things as LISP-based
multi-microprocessor systems (256 Z-80s!) and
research in Frame Languages. 
Other military
and space-related organizations (NASA) are also considering the potential of 
LISP and AI-related  applications.
The point is that AI is a growing market
--two billion dollars by 1990, claims Business Week-- and a good
portion of that work will be done on traditional micro processor machines
rather than special LISP machines.
Furthermore, this is a market that \F2no\F1 language other than LISP
will impact for many years.

At MIT Dr. Harold Abelson and Dr. Andrea diSessa  have instituted a program
to revise the undergraduate mathematics and physics curricula using a LISP-based
approach. 
Their project,  co-sponsored
by MIT and ARPA, illustrates two points:
first, MIT's
committment to LISP  --LISP 
has long been the major language used in their introductory software course, and
now is to be  used to revitalize the more traditional undergraduate curricula.
Second, ARPA's
sponsorship denotes awareness 
that the growth of AI will require substantial increases in the 
number of AI personnel. The MIT program will do much to improve education and
increase the general awareness of LISP ideas.

The potential, both in financial and intellectual terms, for an improved
educational offering  is immense. 
There is increasing awareness that the current uses of computing in education
are inadequate.
A recent joint NSF and Dept. of Education
task force reported grim predictions for the educational output on the US
technological front; the suggested a Presidential council to guide the
refurbishing of our mathematics and science  programs. Recent issues of Computer
magazine, Communications of the ACM, and BYTE magazine have addressed the same
problems. In  the July 1980 issue of BYTE, Dr. Arthur
Luehrman suggests a billion-dollar equipment market and $50 million annually
in  sales of texts for
computer-related secondary education.

At least one organization is beginning to move on this problem in a 
substantial way.
Last September, Xerox announced that they had released Smalltalk-80
to five manufacturers, beginning efforts to bring the Smalltalk family to
the mass market. The effect of Smalltalk is expected to be massive.

Furthermore
LOGO, as described in Seymour Papert's new book \F2Mindstorms: Computers,
Children, and Powerful Ideas\F1, may become a TI product. LOGO
has been an exceptional vehicle for teaching
primary-grade students "how to think".  LOGO is Smalltalk's immediate
parent; it was developed at MIT in the late 1960's; it introduced the 
idea of  the "turtle"; and it implemented the rudiments of object-oriented 
programming, both hallmarks of Smalltalk.

The more global solution is to develop LISP. Besides
being the parent of many of the LOGO/Smalltalk ideas, it offers
a degree of maturity and practicality not found in either Smalltalk or
LOGO. This breadth includes Artificial Intelligence applications
as well as educational benefits. 
Already there is a
short supply of trained AI personnel
and therefore increased demand at the college level for AI-related 
courses. From beneath this surface will spring a general cultural
awareness of, and interest in, AI-related  topics. For example,
Creative Computing just did a two-issue spread on LISP/actor/object-oriented
concepts;
four publishers have asked me to write  an introductory-level LISP text;
and this year a group of us will do a major session/demo/tutorial
on LISP and related areas at the West Coast Computer Faire.

Where LISP comes into its own in the educational 
market is its 
basis in mathematics, and computing principles; one can use LISP
\F2explain\F1 the principles that underlie the phenomena that one
\F2experiences\F1 in Smalltalk and LOGO. Smalltalk and LOGO are to
engineering, as LISP is to mathematics. This added leverage
gives LISP inroads into intellectual disciplines that are not
open to a more superficial language. For example,
one can give a firm  and intuitive basis for modern computing,
based on simple LISP-like constructs.

At Santa Clara University I have instituted a program to revamp the undergraduate
computer science curriculum using LISP ideas as the base. This program includes
an interactive programming lab as an integral part of the educational experience.
This pilot study will begin in the spring term and will
be exported to other universities as rapidly as possible; several other universities
have expressed strong interest.

Though the initial laboratory will utilize Z-80 based machines, it is clear
that these machines are inadequate to accurately represent what modern
computing is becoming. It might be attractive to  consider the
possibility of  68000-based projects within the Santa Clara EECS, developing
the next generation of interactive computing tools, while preparing
a book that utilized the 68000 architecture. Such a book would enhance the
attractiveness of the chip at universities as well as within industry.

We also expect to expand this program into a continuing Humanities and
Science faculty workshop; this program will develop a campus-wide 
course to introduce computing to the student-body.
On the technical side, I am offering
a LISP class for the 
Western Institute in Computer Science (run by the people who used to run
the UC Santa Cruz Summer Institute)
to be held this summer at Santa Clara University.

My ultimate goal is to move a version of 
this integrated program --LISP-based text
and computing laboratory-- into the  high schools to  revitalize their
mathematics and science programs, while giving a more accurate view of modern
computation than that presented in the traditional BASIC model.  

The market will be there in full force for the 16-bit machines,
and Smalltalk's entry will only enlarge the wave. Some will
ride that wave, others will be swamped by it. 
LISP offers
and elegant way to finesse the Smalltalk phenomenon, and TLC will be
the force behind micro-based LISPs.

The question is: are you interested, willing to
act, and act soon? I need to locate additional support  to assure
timely development of the extended TLC-LISP and the 
eventual availability of high-quality machines to suit the
needs of the AI community.

In return for this support, Signetics/North American Philips
would have a reasonable entry both into the educational market and the
market of applied Artificial Intelligence.
The key, of course, is LISP in an inexpensive setting that is compatible
with the parameters of interactive programming. I appears to me that
Signetics/Philips have appropriate components to build such systems 
if the desire is there.

In summary:

⊗ Aritificial Intelligence is a growing market --two billion dollars by 1990--
  as yet unsupported by a major manufacturer.

⊗ Educational ramifications to LISP and AI are immense.

⊗ LISP and AI offers a dramatic counter to the impending Smalltalk release.

If you would like
further information about any  of
these projects, please contact me through one of the following:
Santa Clara University --(408)984-4358, TLC --(408)353-2227, 
or home --(408)353-3857.
\.


\←L\→S\←R\-L\/'2;\+L\→L

Yours sincerely,


John R. Allen
The LISP Company
18215 Bayview Dr.
Los Gatos Ca, 95030
(408) 353-3857

\←S\→L
\.