2026-10-15 09:57 UTC
In April of 1987 Masterscope, a newsletter for Interlisp-D and Xerox Lisp workstation users, published an article outlining the features of the then upcoming Xerox Common Lisp. It was a CLtL1 compliant implementation with the addition of the Common Lisp condition system.
The article is interesting as it pinpoints in time the arrival of Common Lisp and the condition system in the evolution of the Interlisp environment. And there's a cameo of @kentpitman Kent Pitman:
In addition, we've implemented Kent Pitman's proposed standard Common Lisp Error System which provides a hierarchy of error types, error handling, and a consistent way of providing user error recovery.
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/interlisp-d/newsletters/Masterscope_Volume_3_Number_2_198704.pdf#page=3
#interlisp #CommonLisp #lisp #retrocomputing
Replies (1)
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@kentpitman@climatejustice.social 2026-10-15 09:59
@amoroso@oldbytes.space Other vendors did similar things. The one that caught my eye merely said something like "We have Pitman errors." which was not as flattering, I thought. I wish I could remember the detail more precisely, and who said it. At the time, I told myself "In my next life, I'll do something like benchmarks." since it sounded cooler to be known for the Gabriel benchmarks than the Pitman errors.