TI Explorer
Encyclopedia
The Texas Instruments
Explorer is a family of Lisp Machine
computers. These computers were sold by Texas Instruments in the 1980s. The Explorer is based on a design from Lisp Machines Incorporated
, which is based on the MIT Lisp Machine
.
The Explorer was used for development and deployment of artificial-intelligence
software. Later models were based on a special 32-bit microprocessor developed by Texas Instruments, which supported the execution of Lisp software in hardware. The operating system of the Explorer was written in Lisp Machine Lisp
and supported also Common Lisp
.
Notable is also the early use of the NuBus
as the system bus for the Explorer computer family.
Several models were available:
A notable application is SPIKE, the scheduling system for the Hubble Space Telescope. SPIKE was developed on Texas Instruments Explorer workstations.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
Explorer is a family of Lisp Machine
Lisp machine
Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations...
computers. These computers were sold by Texas Instruments in the 1980s. The Explorer is based on a design from Lisp Machines Incorporated
Lisp Machines
Lisp Machines, Inc. was a company formed in 1979 by Richard Greenblatt of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to build Lisp machines. It was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts....
, which is based on the MIT Lisp Machine
Lisp machine
Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations...
.
The Explorer was used for development and deployment of artificial-intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
software. Later models were based on a special 32-bit microprocessor developed by Texas Instruments, which supported the execution of Lisp software in hardware. The operating system of the Explorer was written in Lisp Machine Lisp
Lisp Machine Lisp
Lisp Machine Lisp is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, a direct descendant of Maclisp, and was initially developed in the mid to late 1970s as the systems programming language for the MIT Lisp machines. Lisp Machine Lisp was also the Lisp dialect with the most influence on the design of...
and supported also Common Lisp
Common Lisp
Common Lisp, commonly abbreviated CL, is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ANSI INCITS 226-1994 , . From the ANSI Common Lisp standard the Common Lisp HyperSpec has been derived for use with web browsers...
.
Notable is also the early use of the NuBus
NuBus
NuBus is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT as a part of the NuMachine workstation project. The first complete implementation of the NuBus and the NuMachine was done by Western Digital for their NuMachine, and for the Lisp Machines Inc. LMI-Lambda. The NuBus was later...
as the system bus for the Explorer computer family.
Several models were available:
- the Explorer
- the Explorer II, based on the Lisp microprocessor
- the Explorer LX, which combines the Explorer with a co-processor running a version of UNIXUnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
(TI System V) - the MicroExplorer, a NuBusNuBusNuBus is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT as a part of the NuMachine workstation project. The first complete implementation of the NuBus and the NuMachine was done by Western Digital for their NuMachine, and for the Lisp Machines Inc. LMI-Lambda. The NuBus was later...
board for the Apple Macintosh based on the Lisp microprocessor
A notable application is SPIKE, the scheduling system for the Hubble Space Telescope. SPIKE was developed on Texas Instruments Explorer workstations.
Publications
- Software innovations for the Texas Instruments Explorer computer, Tennant, H.R.; Bate, R.R.; Corey, S.M.; Davis, L.; Kline, P.; Oren, L.G.; Rajinikanth, M.; Saenz, R.; Stenger, D.; Thompson, C.W., Proceedings of the IEEE Volume 73, Issue 12, Dec. 1985 Page(s): 1771 - 1790
- Artificial intelligence hardware architectures for the Space Station era: The Texas Instruments Explorer and Compact LISP Machine, Krueger, S. ; Manuel, G. ; Matthews, G. ; Ott, G. ; Watkins, C., Opt. Eng. ; Vol/Issue: 25:11
- Dussud, P. H. 1988. Lisp hardware architecture: the Explorer II and beyond. SIGPLAN Lisp Pointers 1, 6 (Apr. 1988), 13-18. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1317224.1317226
- P.H. Dussud, TICLOS: An implementation of CLOS for the Explorer Family, In Proc. OOPSLA'89, International Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages and Applications, 1989, pp. 215–219.
- Zeitgeist: Database Support for ObjectOriented Programming (1988), by S Ford, J Joseph, D Langworthy, D Lively, G Pathak, E Perez, R Peterson, D Sparacin, S Thatte, D Wells, S Agarwal, In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Object-Oriented Database Systems (Zeitgeist was a OODBMS developed by Texas Instruments for the Explorer)