This repository contains a set of files from 1971-1982 that constitute the source and related files of early versions of Micro-Planner, an implementation of part of the Planner programming language originally created at MIT by Gerald Jay Sussman, Terry Winograd, and Eugene Charniak in 1970. The Micro-Planner implementation was used in the early natural-language understanding program, SHRDLU. Manuals to Micro-Planner are available on MIT DSpace in Artificial Intelligence Memo No. 203 and No. 203A (updated). The files available in this repo are a part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tapes of Tech Square (ToTS) collection at the MIT Libraries Department of Distinctive Collections (DDC).
The files within this directory are the Micro-Planner specific files from 7 different tape image files in the ToTS collection that constitute files from multiple early versions. Files are from ITS backup tapes. Most files are written in the Micro-Planner programming language and were originally created on a PDP-10 timeshare computer running the ITS operating system.
Files were extracted from the tape images using the itstar program. The filenames have been adapted to Unix conventions, as per the itstar translation. The original filename syntax would be formatted like, PLNR; PLNR 176, for example. All files have been placed into this artificial plnr directory for organizational purposes. The files extracted from the tape images were put into sub-folders with a corresponding name to the tapes listed in the tapelist.txt file.
Each directory contains a _info_.plnr file that describes the main files in the directory and how they function within Micro-Planner. Multiple manuals exist in the files as well which are versions of the published manuals found in the AI Memos cited above. They are typically just named manual such as manual.179.
This file is metadata about the Micro-Planner files, using the CodeMeta Project schema.
This file describes the details about the rights to these files. See Rights for additional information.
This file is the readme detailing the content and context for this repository.
A file tree listing the files in the planr directory showing the original file timestamps as extracted from the tape images.
A list of all the tape images and their paths in the ToTS collection that these files came from.
[filename], Micro-Planner files, 1971-1982, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tapes of Tech Square (ToTS) collection, MC-0741. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Distinctive Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts. swh:1:dir:afcbf89b68664105987e14e1e85a52ee04102a6b
To the extent that MIT holds rights in these files, they are released under the terms of the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information. Any questions about permissions should be directed to [email protected]
Thanks to Eric Swenson for help with identifying these files.