IPL-V Manual (1964) [pdf]

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24 pointsabrax31414 comments

My friend Norm told me he remembered the first time he learned the idea of a linked list; IIRC it was from one of the IPL-n manuals. I've tried to read this one previously, but it's hard to get much out of; so much changed during the 01960s that for me it's like reading computer science papers in Dutch. (I don't speak Dutch.)

Looks like page 18 in the linked pdf.

I listen to the advent of computing podcast and enjoyed the ones where it explored why Lisp is associated with AI. And how IPL predated lisp and influenced it.

The historic Lisp-AI connection is well articulated in the Introduction chapter of the Winston and Horn Lisp book. It captures the attitude of that time that some Lisp people had as being in a position of supremacy in that area.

In the 1981 edition, that chapter has an outright section titled, in bold:

Symbol Manipulation is Needed to Make Computers Intelligent followed by a half dozen bulleted paragraphs why.

and then LISP is the Right Symbol-Manipulation Language to Learn.

People interested in AI would be exposed to texts like this and end up believing some of the stuff.

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