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\F1\CMay 22, 1981


Robert Alkire
MicroDaSys 
1541 S. Manhatten Place
Los Angeles, CA 90019


Dear Mr. Alkire:

\J
It was a pleasure to talk with you about the MicroDaSys machine. 
Indications are that
you have an elegant product that will support my  LISP effort.
A  concern is  availability of hardware, since I will be pressing hard to
develop the software in as short a time as possible.
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
TLC.

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. 

After the opening phase of porting the language,
I plan to enhance the language, adding more of the traditional language
artifacts 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 an advanced  window-system
will play a crucial role. An interactive graphics capability is 
needed for an effective use of either LISP, LOGO, or Smalltalk --we can address
these issues in future discussions.

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 MicroDaSys to be able to mention that LISP would soon be 
available on that machine. 

Also, perhaps of  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   teaching  an experimental computer
science course  this spring, and an preparing to
teach a university-wide humanities-oriented version of this
offering as a core course in the undergraduate program.
An outline of that course --Computing and Culture-- is enclosed.
Furthermore,
I will be  teaching  a  more intense version of this material
to a faculty workshop in the Humanities and Sciences schools. 
An integral part of these courses is an interactive programming laboratory
consisting of a local network of personal machines, much in the style 
that Xerox has developed at their PARC facility. These personal machines
will be expected to be of high computational power, running LISP, LOGO,
and Smalltalk. 

I am writing two books: a text on the 
"art and philosophy" of computation, and a corresponding laboratory
text dealing with LISP, LOGO, and Smalltalk. In conjunction with these books
a large software base of aids and applications will be developed.
I intent to export 
this educational  program to other universities as soon as feasible.
Such a program   will yield substantial 
and sustained sales of machines.

I believe that these three issues 
--the availability  of TLC-LISP to the Navy projects,
 the introduction of MicroDaSys to the commercial AI
community through the summer Institute, and the educational programs at
Santa Clara University--
contain the basis for a mutually attractive  cooperative venture.
The critical issue now is to move rapidly on the 68K implementation.
I hope you agree and will respond positively.

This letter and the attached material should add some perspective to our
 conversations. I believe that MicroDaSys 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.
\.
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Yours sincerely,


John R. Allen
The LISP Co.
18215 Bayview Dr.
Los Gatos Ca, 95030
(408) 353-2227 --TLC
(408) 984-4611 --Santa Clara University: office
(408) 984-4482 --Santa Clara University: EECS office
(408) 353-3857 --home

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