LCS/AI Lab Timeline

Test of LISP for CAD use: Point-Line Diagrams with Constraints (1959)

Winter 1959: "An initial 'point line diagram' program written in the LISP system was completed and debugged. The manipulation of diagrams consisting of points, lines, and angles in order to find an arrangement which satisfies a number of specified conditions is a simple problem containing representative cases of most of the basic aspects of both light pen language translation and elementary design problem-solving. . . . The writing of a complete META function in LISP… served its function" of justifying the multi-component, reverse index-register use for CAD. The META function did true "list"-processing, in that multiple lists were processed in parallel (cull, merge, etc.), and the META-process was programmed in its own graphic language.

References:
Quote from Quarterly Progress Report to F.M. Verzuh, MIT Computation Center, Problem #M846, ESL Memo 8436-M-2

Reported By:
Doug Ross