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C00002 00002		Balzer seems to have forgotten about the Common Lisp effort,
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	Balzer seems to have forgotten about the Common Lisp effort,
which, thanks in large measure to Guy Steele, has succeeded in enlisting
the co-operative efforts of almost everyone in the field, except that its
representation from the Interlisp community is rather weak, though not
non-existent.  I would imagine that Balzer's idea that Xerox should supply
the small machines and Symbolics the larger would founder, if seriously
advanced, on the rock of Dorado, the Xerox candidate for the large
machine.

	The Common Lisp effort isn't top down: it was started by 4
implementation groups - Spice Lisp, Vax Nil, S-1 Lisp, and Symbolics Lisp
Machine Lisp - agreeing to move their dialects closer together.  Besides
these it now includes LMI, two D.E.C. sponsored LISP efforts (for VAX
and TOPS-20), and Portable Standard LISP.  I doubt the wisdom of a
fresh start on forming a compatibility effort.  I'll talk to Ed
Feigenbaum and explore the attitude of his community to the possibility
of their supporting the Common Lisp effort.

	I'm joining it because I think it has a good chance of succeeding,
and I think I can add to the probability of it succeeding.  There are more
than 600 messages in the Common Lisp file at SAIL that Dick Gabriel keeps
for the group, and I think the manual is converging.  Also the various
implementers seem to be saying that they can live with the result.

	No doubt Symbolics will produce an Interlisp version for their
machine if they get enough orders, but judging from their strong
participation in the Common Lisp effort, I would conclude that Commmon
Lisp is their main compatibility effort.

	Finally I believe that the Stanford concentration on the tools for
building a first class public library for Common Lisp will be the major
contribution to reversing the proliferation of LISP variants.