"Because I don't
believe that it's really desirable to have security on
a computer, I shouldn't be willing to help uphold the
security regime."
Stallman's refusal to bow before the great and powerful
Oz symbolized the growing tension between hackers and
AI Lab management during the early 1980s. This tension
paled in comparison to the conflict that raged within
the hacker community itself. By the time the KL-10
arrived, the hacker community had already divided into
two camps. The first centered around a software company
called Symbolics, Inc. The second centered around
Symbolics chief rival, Lisp Machines, Inc. (LMI). Both
companies were in a race to market the Lisp Machine, a
device built to take full advantage of the Lisp
programming language.
Created by artificial-intelligence research pioneer
John McCarthy, a MIT artificial-intelligence researcher
during the late 1950s, Lisp is an elegant language
well-suited for programs charged with heavy-duty
sorting and processing. The language's name is a
shortened version of LISt Processing.
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