VAX LISP was an implementation of 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...

 for VMS

OpenVMS

OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...

 and ULTRIX

Ultrix

Ultrix was the brand name of Digital Equipment Corporation's native Unix systems. While ultrix is the Latin word for avenger, the name was chosen solely for its sound.-History:...

 on 32-bit VAX

VAX

VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...

s. It was the first Common Lisp to be written for non-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...

s. It was initially boot-strapped

Bootstrapping (compilers)

In computer science, bootstrapping is the process of writing a compiler in the target programming language which it is intended to compile...

 from Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

's Spice Lisp

Spice Lisp

Spice Lisp is a Lisp dialect and its implementation originally written by CMU's Spice Lisp Group which targeted the microcode of the 16-bit PERQ workstation and its Accent operating system; it used that workstation's microcode abilities to implement a stack architecture to store its data...

 by recompiling its output but for VAX machine instruction and to use the large VAX stack

Stack

-Mathematics:* Stack , general category-theoretical concept to formalise "pull-back" operations in geometry and algebra* Algebraic stack, a generalisation of scheme and algebraic space in algebraic geometry; a specific type of the above-Computers:...

. Some of the original developers came from CMU.

Features included:

• dumb-terminal IDE with Emacs
  Emacs
  Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
  
  -like editor (programming in Common Lisp)
• DECwindows- (X11-)based workstation IDE (with editor, debugger, and inspector)
• multi-threading (based on POSIX threads
  POSIX Threads
  POSIX Threads, usually referred to as Pthreads, is a POSIX standard for threads. The standard, POSIX.1c, Threads extensions , defines an API for creating and manipulating threads....
  
  )
• a compiler that generated intermediate files which could be "fast-loaded"
• a patented mechanism for writing and reading the executable state of the entire virtual machine

During the development of the never-released V4.0 the product was sold off to Lucid Inc.

Lucid Inc.

Lucid Incorporated was a software development company founded by Richard P. Gabriel in 1984 which went bankrupt in 1994.-Beginnings:Gabriel had been working for Lawrence Livermore National Labs on a computer hardware project called "S1", the first incarnation of which used a CISC processor...