The c-logo-s initiative writes a chronologically organized history of the programming language Logo and the broader theoretical and institutional currents that shaped it, tracing origins from 1930s formal logic and 1940s cybernetics through the language's 1960s inception at BBN to its influence on modern graphical and agent-based environments. The account frames Logo not as an isolated educational tool but as a convergence point for ideas from Turing, Church, Piaget, the Macy Conferences, and early artificial intelligence research, detailing how collaborative efforts by Wallace Feurzeig, Cynthia Solomon, Daniel Bobrow, and Seymour Papert transformed interactive computing into a medium for exploring mathematics and cognitive development. The text further outlines Logo's commercial and academic distribution across the microcomputer era, its integration with physical robotics through LEGO and the MIT Media Lab, and its conceptual legacy in contemporary systems like StarLogo, NetLogo, Scratch, and Snap!.
Jeff Shrager's repository introduces "executable archaeology" — the practice of recovering, transcribing, and running the original historical source of early computing programs so that the surviving artifact itself, rather than a modern rewrite, can serve as experimental evidence. The main project here is an IPL-V reimplementation of Victor Yngve's 1959–61 MIT sentence generator, run under Herbert A. Simon's account on 25 June 1962, whose surviving printout preserves the program, its phrase-structure grammar, execution traces, and handwritten corrections by Simon and his daughter Katherine.
- The repository also points to separate repos reconstructing the Logic Theorist in two historically distinct forms (LT1 in IPL-I and LT5 in IPL-V) and a full CTSS/IBM 7094 reanimation of Weizenbaum's original ELIZA
- A 2026 arXiv paper by Shrager and a 2025 IEEE Annals paper by Lane et al. provide the formal background
- Six stated principles govern the work, including distinguishing original behavior from behavior introduced by the reconstruction
- The repository also points to separate repos reconstructing the Logic Theorist in two historically distinct forms (LT1 in IPL-I and LT5 in IPL-V) and a full CTSS/IBM 7094 reanimation of Weizenbaum's original ELIZA
- A 2026 arXiv paper by Shrager and a 2025 IEEE Annals paper by Lane et al. provide the formal background
- Six stated principles govern the work, including distinguishing original behavior from behavior introduced by the reconstruction
Niklas Roy has created a modern-day take on the two-wheeled robots used in schools in the 1980s with Logo programming. His robots are vector plotters that create artwork and can be built with an Arduino Nano.
Fernando J. Corbató was a Professor Emeritus at MIT, renowned for his pioneering work in the development of time-sharing and resource-sharing computer systems. He was instrumental in creating the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) and Multics, both influential systems that laid the groundwork for modern operating systems. Corbató's contributions have been widely recognized through numerous awards and fellowships, including the Turing Award (1990) and the Computer Pioneer Award (1982). He was a long-time member of the MIT Computation Center and the Laboratory for Computer Science, and held leadership positions within the department. His work significantly impacted the field of computer science and the evolution of computing technology.
A forum dedicated to bug-lispm, a project related to the Lisp Machine. The page lists recent threads with their creation dates, titles, and number of posts/days spanned.
ITS (Incompatible Timesharing System) was a timesharing system developed at MIT in 1967, initially for the PDP-6 and later primarily on PDP-10 computers, notable for its lack of security features like passwords. The SDF ITS is currently accessible at https://hactrn.org/ via a KA10 emulator and offers tutorials for basic use and exploration of classic programs. Users are encouraged to log in, create a directory, and explore programs like Zork, Emacs, Maclisp, and C through provided hints and documentation.
A reference manual for the extensible, customizable, self-documenting real-time display editor. This manual corresponds to EMACS version 162.
MIT's Tech Square has played a significant role in the evolution of computing, hosting key figures and research from time-shared computing to the World Wide Web.
Researchers discovered long-lost computer code and used it to resurrect the early chatbot ELIZA from MIT. Named after Eliza Doolittle from 'Pygmalion,' ELIZA was developed in the 1960s by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum. It was designed to emulate a psychotherapist in conversation and used a unique programming language called MAD-SLIP. Rediscovered in 2021, the original code was brought back to life after 60 years, demonstrating the chatbot's functionality and highlighting the historical significance of early artificial intelligence.
The December 2024 newsletter from Obsolescence Guaranteed covers updates on new projects such as PiDP-10 and PiDP-1, news about existing projects like PiDP-8 and PiDP-11, and upcoming plans for 2025 including a PiDP-1 replica and an annual programming competition.
