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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 04/10/2026

Interlisp source files contain a file map, a data structure with the locations of functions & definitions within the file. This metadata is a hint to the system for directly loading or accessing the definitions, with scanning the file as a fallback. interlisp.org/documentatio... #interlisp #lisp

interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 01/10/2026

This video demonstrates some basic features of SEdit, one of the structural editors of Medley Interlisp: selecting, copying, deleting, and moving Lisp expressions. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc-M... #StructureEditor #editor #interlisp #lisp

youtube.com

Selecting and manipulating structures with SEdit on Interlisp

YouTube video by Paolo Amoroso

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 28/09/2026

Section "Medley as an Interactive Environment" of the Interlisp manual is an executive summary of the Medley programming environment and its main facilites. "[...] a completely self-sufficient environment for developing and using Medley programs." interlisp.org/documentatio... #interlisp #lisp

interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 25/09/2026

On Medley Interlisp the Snap item of the background or window title right-click menu lets you capture a screenshot of a portion of the screen you are prompted to swipe out. Here is the background menu with a captured copy of the Medley logo window. #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 22/09/2026

This blog post outlines the history of the advice facility in Lisp and its early implementations in BBN Lisp and its successor Interlisp. p-cos.blogspot.com/2007/12/orig... #interlisp #lisp #retrocomputing

p-cos.blogspot.com

Origin of Advice

Apparently, Gary King needs advice a lot . This reminded me that I posted an article about the origin of advice some time ago in the AOSD...

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 19/09/2026

MATCH is an Interlisp library module for pattern matching, binding, and replacement of Lisp expressions. Other Interlisp tools support this pattern matcher such as the TTY structure editor. files.interlisp.org/medley/libra... #interlisp #lisp

files.interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 16/09/2026

COBOL in the Interlisp environment? Along with Fortran and a "Bitmap Editor as good as MacPaint" it was in a wishlist of system improvements and new features the Interlisp group compiled in the late 1980s. files.interlisp.org/medley/docs/... #interlisp #cobol #retrocomputing

files.interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 10/09/2026

Margot created this art with the Interlisp bitmap editor (left window) and experimented with layering it over itself using the BITBLT graphics operation (right window). github.com/orgs/Interli... #PixelArt #interlisp

Screenshot of the black and white desktop of a 1980s graphical workstation environment. The desktop has a background pattern consisting of a cat head pattern and some windows with a white background and a title bar with white text on a black background. One of the two main windows shows a handmade bitmap drawing of the upper part of a person with the hands on their face. The other window shows the result of layering that bitmap drawing over itself.

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 07/09/2026

In the Interlisp environment the Process Status Window (PSW) is a tool for monitoring, manipulating, and debugging processes . An Interlisp "process" is what we now call a thread. interlisp.org/documentatio... #interlisp #lisp

interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 04/09/2026

The Interlisp function APROPOS prints the symbols which have the first argument as a substring, along with details relevant to each matching symbol such as the arguments of functions. This is the output of the call (APROPOS "HOSTNAME"). interlisp.org/documentatio... #interlisp #lisp

Screenshot of a portion of the black and white desktop of a 1980s graphical workstation environment. The desktop has a gray background pattern and one window with a white background and a title bar with white text on a black background. The window shows a a list of symbols that match a string and some details on them.

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 29/08/2026

The Interlisp environment can trace data packets over a local network. As in this example of the traffic for accessing a file server connected to a Xerox XNS network, emulated via Dodo Services running on Linux. #xns #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 26/08/2026

Interlisp-D came with the KERMIT and MODEM modules which implemented the respective file transfer protocols over RS-232 serial lines. They supported transfer of files with various systems, from microcomputers to mainframes. files.interlisp.org/medley/libra... #interlisp #kermit #retrocomputing

files.interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 23/08/2026

The AR database was the bug reporting and ticketing system of Interlisp-D. An "Action Request" (AR) was what we now call an issue or ticket. files.interlisp.org/medley/inter... #interlisp #bugs #retrocomputing

files.interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 17/08/2026

NoteCards was also used for supporting the writing process such as taking notes, maintaining bibliographies, outlining. This '87 paper reported on how writers used the hypertext system. dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1... dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1... #NoteCards #interlisp #retrocomputing #hypertext #writing

dl.acm.org

Hypertext habitats | Proceedings of the ACM conference on Hypertext

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 14/08/2026

Margot created this art with the bitmap editing features of Medley Interlisp. github.com/orgs/Interli... #PixelArt #interlisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 11/08/2026

We welcome to the fediverse Squeak/Smalltalk, an open source project that descends from the seminal work on Smalltalk at Xerox PARC. Interlisp was born in the same environment that originated these innovative technologies. fosstodon.org/@squeak squeak.org #smalltalk #parc #xerox #retrocomputing

fosstodon.org

Squeak/Smalltalk (@squeak@fosstodon.org)

16 Posts, 24 Following, 217 Followers · Squeak is a modern, open-source Smalltalk programming system with fast execution environments for all major platforms. It features the Morphic framework, which ...

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 08/08/2026

URAID is the low level debugger and diagnostic tool of Medley Interlisp. The name comes from "Unix RAID", the latter likely a pun on the insecticide of the same name. This 1991 manual of Medley for Sun describes the URAID commands. interlisp.org/documentatio... #interlisp #debugger #retrocomputing

interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 05/08/2026

We had a meeting at the Computer History Museum and took the opportunity for a photo next to a Xerox Alto. From left to right: Nick Briggs, Ron Kaplan, Herb Jellinek, Frank Halasz, and Larry Masinter. computerhistory.org #interlisp #xerox #parc #chm

A photo of five senior men dressed casually standing in front of a computer museum exhibit of an early graphical workstation, three at the left and two at the right of the machine.

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 02/08/2026

Ryan Burnside updated his game Hungarian Rings to lower the difficulty, redo the instructions, group the program windows, and add a visual signal when solved. github.com/RyanBurnside... #game #interlisp #lisp

Screenshot of the black and white desktop of a 1980s graphical workstation environment. The desktop has a gray background pattern and some windows with a white background and a title bar with white text on a black background. The main windows, attached at a vertical side, show a puzzle game. Each window graphically displays three overlapping rings of balls of different shade patterns.

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 30/07/2026

Although NoteCards was not initially designed with collaboration in mind, this 1986 paper described some extensions for supporting collaboration. NoteCards is the hypertext system of Medley Interlisp. dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1... dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1... #interlisp #hypertext #retrocomputing

dl.acm.org

Supporting collaboration in notecards | Proceedings of the 1986 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 27/07/2026

These are the screens of two Medley Interlisp instances connected to a Xerox XNS local network emulated via Dodo Services, all running on Linux. 1/2 #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 24/07/2026

The echo server of Medley Interlisp mirrors the packets received over a network. This is the output of the client, function NS.ECHOUSER, where ! represents a sent packet and + a received packet. 1/2 #interlisp #xns #lisp

Screenshot of a portion of the black and white desktop of a 1980s graphical workstation environment. The desktop has a grey background pattern and one window with a white background and a title bar with white text on a black background. The window shows a sequence of characters "!+" repeated dozens of times, along with information on a machine connected to the local network.

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 21/07/2026

On Medley Interlisp you can access all the source code, including that of core system features. For example, to open in the editor the CREATEW function for creating a window evaluate (ED 'CREATEW). And, of course, you can change and run the code. #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 18/07/2026

We encourage to check out the TWENEX (TOPS-20) public access system by SDF.org which also runs Interlisp-10. twenex.org wiki.twenex.org/tutorials:in... journal.paoloamoroso.com/exploring-in... #twenex #interlisp #retrocomputing

twenex.org

SDF Public Access TWENEX

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 14/07/2026

TEdit, the WYSIWYG editor of Medley Interlisp, also supports mathematical equations and symbols. #interlisp #lisp #retrocomputing

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 11/07/2026

Interlisp-10 used shallow binding, Interlisp-D and Medley deep binding. The latter allows faster spaghetti stack operations such as backtracking, coroutines, processes (threads), and other control schemes. www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/in... interlisp.org/documentatio... #interlisp #lisp

bitsavers.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 07/07/2026

These are the screens of two Medley Interlisp instances connected to a Xerox XNS local network emulated via Dodo Services, all running on Linux. A frame delimits a clock application on the first instance. 1/2 #xns #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 01/07/2026

In LOOPS, classes, class variables, and instance variables can have property lists of name/value pairs along with a value. It's useful for documentation, units, or other metadata. The declaration of an instance variable "mass": (mass 2.0 unit 'kg doc "Mass of a body") 1/2 #interlisp #oop #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 28/06/2026

The Interlisp environment has no file picker dialog. Applications provide a text entry field to type a file name with optional path, as the TEdit WYSIWYG editor here which prompts for a file to open (GET). #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 25/06/2026

The Clearinghouse is the directory and naming service of the Xerox Network Systems (XNS) protocol suite, used by Xerox workstations and other machines including Interlisp systems. The Clearinghouse is to XNS what DNS is to TCP/IP. www.connected.app/ports/54 #xns #interlisp #retrocomputing

connected.app

Port 54: XNS Clearinghouse — The Name Service That Named Things Before DNS • Connected

Port 54 carries the XNS Clearinghouse protocol, Xerox PARC's pioneering directory service from the early 1980s. It solved the problem of finding machines by name before DNS existed, and then the world...

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 22/06/2026

In 2025 Larry Masinter and Frank Halasz were guests of Do you speak tech?, a show of Near FM radio in Dublin. They chatted about Interlisp, their memories of Xerox PARC, the computing world then and now, and more. www.patrickdomanico.com/bpm/2026/06/... #interlisp #lisp #retrocomputing

patrickdomanico.com

Inventing the Future, One Lisp Machine at a Time | Between People & Machine

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 17/06/2026

Ryan Burnside ran the SPY statistical profiler of Medley Interlisp to analyze a non-trivial program and this is the output. #profiler #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 13/06/2026

Medley Interlisp has a reference-counting garbace collector that provides better performance with interactive applications. It doesn't reclaim circular structures and other data and the reference count table is of fixed size. interlisp.org/documentatio... #GarbageCollection #interlisp #lisp

interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 10/06/2026

The December, 1983 edition of the LOOPS manual listed the intellectual precursors of the Lisp Object-Oriented Programming System, the object extension of Interlisp: - Smalltalk - Flavors - PIE - KRL - UNITS - EMYCIN #oop #interlisp #lisp #retrocomputing

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 07/06/2026

On Medley Interlisp, if you highlight a menu item without releasing the mouse button an explanation of what the item does, if available, will be printed in the Prompt Window (the black one). This is conceptually similar to tooltips on modern systems. interlisp.org/documentatio... #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 01/06/2026

Ryan Burnside is experimenting with Interlisp code that draws plots of random noise functions. groups.google.com/g/lispcore/c... #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 29/05/2026

The Prompt Window of Medley Interlisp is a window in which the system and applications display status messages or prompt for input. It's conceptually similar to the notification area of modern systems. #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 26/05/2026

Ryan Burnside wrote SNOW.LISP, a graphics animation program in Interlisp that demonstrates programming techniques such as yielding process control and screen buffering. github.com/RyanBurnside... #lisp #interlisp

github.com

GitHub - RyanBurnside/SNOW.LISP: Demonstrates using BLOCK and also bitmap buffering for simulations.

Demonstrates using BLOCK and also bitmap buffering for simulations. - RyanBurnside/SNOW.LISP

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 23/05/2026

The syntax for file names on Medley Interlisp is: {HOST}DEVICE:<DIRECTORY>NAME.EXTENSION;VERSION The Interlisp manual describes the syntax of file names. interlisp.org/documentatio... The 1991 manual of Medley for Suns also covers file names: interlisp.org/documentatio... #interlisp #lisp

interlisp.org

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 20/05/2026

When an Exec (REPL) window of Medley Interlisp fills with text it pauses output and turns into reverse video waiting for you to press any key to proceed, similarly to pressing SPACE with the Unix program more(1). This behavior can be turned off or customized on a per window basis. #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 17/05/2026

This document open in two windows of TEdit, the WYSIWYG editor of Medley Interlisp, shows a gallery of bitmaps available for Lisp applications and tools. #bitmap #interlisp #lisp #retrocomputing

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 14/05/2026

Ryan Burnside is enhancing his turtle graphics library written in Interlisp. In this screencast he demonstrates some new interactive drawing features. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYcs... github.com/RyanBurnside... #TurtleGraphics #interlisp #lisp

youtube.com

Interlisp "Turtle Drawing" early demo (WIP)

YouTube video by PixelOutlaw

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 11/05/2026

The ? command of the Interlisp Exec (REPL) prints a list of available commands with brief explanations of what they do. Most are Interlisp-D commands, some modern Medley additions. #interlisp #lisp

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The Medley Interlisp Project @interlisp.org · 08/05/2026

Although not a requirement Interlisp source file names are usually all uppercase with no extension such as EDIT or FILEIO. Sometimes Medley Common Lisp sources are all lowercase with .lisp extension like env.lisp or vector.lisp. #interlisp #CommonLisp #lisp

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