We posted the manual of Medley Interlisp for MS-DOS originally published in 1993:
https://github.com/Interlisp/DOS/blob/main/1993%20DOS%20guide.pdf
To run Medley for MS-DOS on DOSBox-X and QEMU see:
https://github.com/orgs/Interlisp/discussions/1799
https://github.com/Interlisp/medley/issues/1790#issuecomment-3795421839
Please note that this version of Medley is old and partially broken.
The SEdit structure editor of Medley Interlisp lets you also modify arbitrary list structures and data, not just Lisp code. In this example the ED function calls SEdit and returns the modified object.
I like to study the screenshots of Interlisp applications in research papers to learn how the GUIs were put together, what APIs and tools they used, and how to code something similar.
The screenshots of the user interface of an expert system shell in this paper are especially clean and legible, which is unfortunately not often the case for old papers.
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/stanford/Stanford_CS_TR_Collection_2025-12-12/PDF/1985/CS-TR-85-1068.pdf
We posted the manuals of the TEdit WYSIWYG editor and the Sketch line drawing program of Medley Interlisp. Although originally published in 1987, most of the material still aplies to modern Medley.
https://files.interlisp.org/medley/library/tedit/docs
I worked on a couple of small but useful improvements to my Interlisp source file viewer: two new directory navigation commands.
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/paoloamoroso/directory-commands-for-an-interlisp-file-viewer
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@interlisp/115972122700808983
Why Medley Interlisp is called Medley.
Interlisp-D releases were named after words related to music starting with successive letters such as Carol, Fugue, Harmony, Intermezzo, Koto, and Lyric. Medley was the last before work on the system petered out in the 1990s.
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@interlisp/115921444786265154
Our 2025 annual report presents the work we did last year to revive the Medley Interlisp system and bring its ecosystem to the 21st century. We would appreciate it if you could share the report, which may be of interest to potential users and other software preservation projects.
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@interlisp/115938663174490825
Fifth Generation Computer Systems ➝ Quintus Prolog: get it?
In 1985 Xerox announced support for Prolog on its AI workstations and awarded development to Quintus, which delivered the Xerox Quintus Prolog implementation fully integrated with Interlisp-D.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/interlisp-d/newsletters/AIDispatch_Aug85.pdf#page=9
https://softwarepreservation.computerhistory.org/prolog/#Quintus
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@interlisp/115921444786265154
We published the latest Medley Interlisp Annual Report. 2025 held symbolic (no pun intended) value for us as it was a round anniversary, the 5th year of the project.
We published the latest Medley Interlisp Annual Report, a summary of the work of 2025. Last year marked the fifth anniversary of the project and the report was an opportunity to reflect on what we achieved.
Using SBCL and McCLIM I wrote an Interlisp tool in modern Common Lisp with a CLIM GUI. That's what happens when one is having too much fun with Lisp.
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/an-interlisp-file-viewer-in-common-lisp
👆 The 1984 episode of Computer Chronicles on Artificial Intelligence also featured a demonstration of Dipmeter Advisor, an oil drilling expert system for Interlisp-D.
The 1984 Artificial Intelligence episode of the Computer Chronicles TV show, hosted by the late Stewart Cheifet, featured demonstrations of some Interlisp applications: the ONCOCIN expert system for medical consultation and the KEE Knowledge Engineering Environment expert system shell.
In Interlisp PUSH and POP manipulate stacks represented as lists and work like the corresponding Common Lisp macros, but PUSH swaps the order of the arguments.
Published in 1978, this paper by Erik Sandewall is one of the best introductions to the Interlisp environment and development style. It doesn't cover the graphical Interlisp-D system but the material still applies to Medley Interlisp.
On November 16, 2023 Steve Kaisler gave the talk “Software Archaeology: The Medley Interlisp Modernisation Project” at a London event of the Computer Conservation Society.
The 1986 article "Xerox proves it moves ideas into the market" discussed the inability of Xerox to turn innovations into products. It also explained why the company was better positioned than other vendors for delivering low-cost AI solutions and how it was improving at bringing its innovations to the market:
Brian Boyle, president of Novon Research in San Francisco, says that Xerox used to practically give their technology away by putting it into the public domain, but he now contends that the company appears to be redirecting its thinking, citing the company's OEM strategy with the 1185 and 1186 as an example.
https://bitsavers.org/magazines/Mini-Micro_Systems/198603.pdf#page=35
The Software Preservation Group at the Computer History Museum compiled a list and bibliography of Interlisp implementations. Did you know that Interlisp also ran on IBM 360/370 mainframes?
https://softwarepreservation.computerhistory.org/LISP/interlisp_family.html
