They have an informative website and an online emulator at https://interlisp.org/software/access-online/
Retro lisp machines are cool. Kudos to the team. Love it.
That said… we need the “lisp machine” of the future more than we need a recreation.
What does a Lisp Machine of the future look like?
There is Mezzano [1] as well as the Interlisp project described in the linked paper and another project resurrecting the LMI software.
LMI here https://github.com/dseagrav/ld
Mostly dead. Current Lisp Machine shenanigans related to MIT/LMI are at https://tumbleweed.nu/lm-3 ...
Currently working on an accurate model of the MIT CADR in VHDL, and merging the various System source trees into one that should work for Lambda, and CADR.
I love this quote (from Interlisp-D: Overview and Status):
"Interlisp is a very large software system and large software systems are not easy to construct. Interlisp-D has on the order of 17,000 lines of Lisp code, 6,000 lines of Bcpl, and 4,000 lines of microcode."
So large. :)
http://www.softwarepreservation.net/projects/LISP/interlisp-...
> So large. :)
Consider this: at any moment in history, the prevailing state the art in computing and information systems are characterized has huge, very large, massive, etc. Some years later, it's a portable device with a battery, and we forgive and snicker at those naïve souls that had no idea at the time.
It's still true today. Whatever thing you have in mind: vast software systems running clouds, megawatt powered NVidia GPU clusters, mighty LLMs... given 10-20 years, the equivalent will be an ad subsidized toy you'll impulse purchase on Black Friday.
You're instinct will be to reject this as absurd. Keep in mind, that is the same impulse experienced by those that came before us.
Same thing could probably be some 200k or more LoC in enterprise Java.
Or Objective-C,
https://github.com/Quotation/LongestCocoa
Or Smalltalk or C++,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns
Or even C,
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Structured-Analysis-Edward-You...
Point being, people like to blame Java, while forgetting history of enterprise architecture.