Updates from the new Medley Interlisp Project

2025 Medley Interlisp Annual Report

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:48:54 -0500

Overview

2025 marked the fifth year of the Medley Interlisp Project.

We began the project in 2020 by merging code fragments from different sources and versions which last ran two decades earlier on long-obsolete machines. Over the intervening five years we consolidated the code and ported it to run on all major operating systems, as well as online via web browsers.

Medley can now run most of its original applications and support the development of new ones, such as the tools and games we created over these years.

2024 Medley Interlisp Annual Report

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:48:54 -0500

Overview

Interlisp-D (and the Medley version of it) were originally developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the 1970’s and 80’s. It was a software environment for rapid prototyping, research and Artificial Intelligence, combining the power of the Lisp language and system elements with the now common PARC-born Windows/Icon/Mouse/Pointer graphical user interface.

The Medley Interlisp project was started in 2020 by a few of the original developers, focusing on reviving the software, making it usable and useful on modern systems. With permission from the last licensee of the software, we are able to release the system as open source. This report highlights the accomplishments and continuing projects over 2024.

2023 Annual Report

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:48:54 -0500

Overview

The Medley Interlisp Project has made significant progress toward its goals of preserving, extending, and documenting the “experience” of Interlisp for now and for the future. This annual report highlights our achievements and ongoing efforts.

Key Accomplishments

We’ve structured our work around project objectives: lower barriers to entry, adapt to modern environments and user expectations, complete “work in progress”, demonstrate applications built in and for the system.

Lower Barriers to Entry

We want to allow newcomers to experience the system and ease of use without complex setup and configuration, so that more individuals can participate.

News and Status Reports

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 16:16:10 +0100

2025 Annual Report released

We released the 2025 Medley Interlisp Annual Report which covers the 5th year of the Medley Interlisp project.

Netstack.FM interviews Larry Masinter

Episode 17 of the Netstack.FM podcast (also available on YouTube) featured an interview with Larry Masinter on Interlisp, the Xerox PARC environment, the history of the early web, and more.

New Medley Primer

In November of 2025 we published Medley Interlisp for the Newcomer by Abhik Hasnain, an introductory guide to Interlisp and the Medley environment.

2021 Medley Interlisp Annual Report

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 20:55:35 -0400

November 15, 2021

Join Interlisp group or follow @interlisp on GitHub

Introduction

To “revive” something is to make it live again. Making Medley Interlisp live again means putting the system in order so that others without a previous deep background in Interlisp can use and appreciate it (if only as a virtual antique).

The Medley Interlisp project started in earnest in March of 2020 (at the beginning of the pandemic). This report focuses on activities and accomplishments since the December 2020 virtual meeting of LispNYC (recording at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6-b_hazcyk).

2022 Medley Interlisp Annual Report

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 13:38:11 -0400

Introduction

We have made considerable progress on the Interlisp software preservation project, and we want to offer tours and collaboration for those engaged in similar or related software preservation efforts.

Interlisp was an early and unique software development environment (IDE) developed in the 1970’s and 1980’s at Xerox PARC, and a testbed for novel software development tools. The Medley version of Interlisp-D was built as a portable Virtual Machine, which has allowed us to bring the system forward to run on a wide variety of modern hardware and operating systems.