From massively monster machines to microchips: forces affecting Lisp language design for five decades

I worked on Lisp design and implementation from the late 1960s almost until I retired about 5 years ago---and since then I've remained in the community by helping organize Lisp conferences. This means I've been in the thick of Lisp for most of its lifetime. In my talk there were a couple of points I wanted to make. First, computer hardware over the years has imposed constraints on the design of Lisp, ranging from gigantic machines in the early days---gigantic in size but miniscule in computing power---to tiny ones today (whose computing power was once considered "super".) Second, it was certain mindsets of the people involved in the design and implementation of Lisp that most strongly influenced its design---in particular, it was their educational background, driven by interests and talents, that had a great impact on the language.