> From: Lars Brinkhoff
>
http://i0.wp.com/futurewavewebdevelopment.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mertz01-2514878-8.jpg
That might actually be the CONS Machine (effectively a prototype CADR);
Greenblatt looks awfully young in that picture! Also, I don't recall him
being super-involved in the CADR work. (You might ask him which it is!)
The CONS CPU backplane is apparently now at the CHM:
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102647223
My memory of the CONS machine is that, like the Chess Machine, it was a
special purpose CPU hung off the AI PDP-10. (Or maybe the Chess Machine was
attached to MC? I forget.) However, while that may have been its state early
on, in reviewing some CONS documents I discovered that it was eventually
given a keyboard and display, although it did remain hooked up to the PDP-10.
The CONS machine is described in 3 AI Lab publications: Working Paper #79,
Working Paper #80 ("CONS", by Tom Knight), and Memo #444 ("LISP Machine
Progress Report"), The first is available here:
http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/mit/cadr/Greenblatt-The_LISP_Machine-1975.pdf
but it's just an architecture document. Memo #444 has an extensive "Current
Status - August 1977" section, which gives more info about the CONS machine as
built.
Noel
