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∂AILDr. Herbert Stoyan↓DDR 806 Dresden↓Togliattistr. 40↓East Germany∞


Dear Dr. Stoyan:

	Thank you for your recent undated letter acknowledging the draft
of my paper.  Also thanks for the copy of your book and the note that came
with it.  Had you planned to include the LISP history in it or was that to
have been a separate publication?  I will try to respond to as many points
in your letter as I can right now, because I sometimes get bogged down in
answering long letters and never finish the reply.

	I am not absolutely sure it was IPL 2.  To tell the truth, I never
became familiar with the details of any version of IPL, because the
programming style of IPL was repellent to me, and anyway IPL wasn't
implemented on any computer I had access to.  The New England Computation
Center was established at M.I.T. with an IBM 704, and it was on that
machine that LISP was developed.  While the other New England colleges and
universities had access to the machine, they had to come to Cambridge or
mail card decks in order to use it, so most of the benefit went to M.I.T.

	I still don't have a LISP I manual, and I am not sure about the
difference between the handling of P-lists in the two versions, but it
seems to me that the difference would be mainly one in preferred
programming style rather than in LISP itself, because the use of P-lists
doesn't much depend on anything in the system itself.

	I must confess that my interest in history has been pretty well
used up by the effort of preparing the paper.  I find myself tempted to
refer to the late John McCarthy.  There are many mistakes and omissions,
and someone with a major interest in history would do better in getting
matters straight than I have or am willing to devote the necessary effort
to accomplishing.

	You are of course correct about the misprint of %2u%1 for %2x%1,
and I suppose you are right about the order of %2car%1 and %2cdr%1.
if your opinion is based on reading, because I wrote it from memory.
Although, come to think of it, I am pretty sure the original %2testr%1
searched in the %2car%1 first.
Corrections are useful, because I will have a chance to correct the paper in
the final published version.  I have already fixed the misprint in
the computer file.

	I will have the Quarterly Progress Reports copied for you and
send them under separate cover.  I just received a copy of an old paper
on LISP 2 which I haven't had time to read, and I'll send you a copy of
that too.

	I just telephoned Jean Sammet, and she said that they planned
a book and would be almost certainly (she never expresses total
certainty) be glad to include your comments, and, as she wrote you,
would even read a few minutes of oral comment at the meeting if
you wanted.

	I have sent John Allen a message suggesting that he
send you a copy of his book when it comes out in May of this year.

.reg