[Air-L] ARPANET resurrection update and possible significances?

Thu Apr 30 06:16:51 PDT 2026

Hello.

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, no, I don't know which version it clones.  Examining the link you kindly highlighted, I note this speculation about the emacs version:

"It was most likely written by Richard Stallman. Note this subset of code:

(set (make-local-variable 'doctor--stallmanlst)
      '(((doc$ doctor--describe) your (doc$ doctor--feelings-about) him \.)
         ((doc$ doctor--areyou) a friend of Stallman \?)
          ((doc$ doctor--bother) Stallman is (doc$ doctor--random-adjective) \?)
          ((doc$ doctor--ibelieve) you are (doc$ doctor--afraidof) him \.)))

It claims to use techniques "similar to the classic Eliza", but doesn't say whether it is based upon Cosell's Lisp code or Weizenbaum's paper. Although it is unknown whether Stallman actually saw Cosell's version, it's pretty likely that he did, being a Lisp hacker and at MIT around the time that the Lisp version would have been making the rounds."

Investigating the code linked from that page (http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/lisp/play/doctor.el), I note evidently asynchronous commented exchange within lines 1624 - 1628:

;; I did not add this -- rms.
;; But he might have removed it.  I put it back.  --roland
(defun doctor-rms ()
  (cond (doctor--rms-flag (doctor-type (doc$ doctor--stallmanlst)))
        (t (setq doctor--rms-flag t) (doctor-type '(do you know Stallman \?)))))

So, it seems there are a number of people who may have contributed their knowledge of prior incarnations to the emacs version.

All my best,
Carl

________________________________________
From: Charles Melvin Ess <c.m.ess at media.uio.no>
Sent: Thursday 30 April 2026 12:56
To: Carl Vogel; Ulf-Dietrich Reips; air-l
Subject: Re: [Air-L] ARPANET resurrection update and possible significances?

[External Email] This email originated outside of Trinity College Dublin. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the content is safe.

Thanks in turn for the tip, Carl. I haven't touched emacs in years, but
will now give it a try.

BTW: do you happen to know which version of ELIZA it might be - likely
the 1966 Cosell version, but there appear to be many versions / clones
"out there" ...

I was recently reminded in a most helpful note from Jeff Shrager (one of
the co-authors, along with David Berry, in the Lane, et. al 2026 paper)
of another source that may be of interest: <elizagen.org>

I had poked at it last year (and, of course, forgot entirely about it
until poking some more in my email this morning) and (re-)discovered a
good overview of the various versions / clones:
<https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/eliza-clones>

They also link to a PDF: ORIGINAL_ELIZA_IN_MAD_SLIP_CC0
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DkdV2o-36mm3x2nURjhKiCaFcjZtMIoI/view>

Thanks again and happy spelunking!
- c.

On 29/04/2026 09:30, Carl Vogel wrote:
> Hello.
>
> Thank you for these notes.
>
>> Even better - especially for those of us not within reasonable travel
>> distance to Mountain View, CA - as Jacob Johanssen helpfully pointed
>> out, it has been possible for some time to interact with a version of
>> ELIZA at <https://sites.google.com/view/elizaarchaeology/home>.
>
> Of course, long before Google made this available, and still now, ELIZA is  available within the (mainly Lisp implemented) text editor, emacs:  "esc-x" and then, in the minibuffer, "doctor".
>
> All my best,
> Carl
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Charles Melvin Ess via Air-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> Sent: Wednesday 29 April 2026 07:12
> To: Ulf-Dietrich Reips; air-l
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] ARPANET resurrection update and possible significances?
>
> [External Email] This email originated outside of Trinity College Dublin. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the content is safe.
>
> Hi Ulf,
>
> And many thanks in turn for the pointer to the CHM. I can only imagine
> how valuable and enjoyable those live demos must have been for you and
> your students - lucky you!
>
> Even better - especially for those of us not within reasonable travel
> distance to Mountain View, CA - as Jacob Johanssen helpfully pointed
> out, it has been possible for some time to interact with a version of
> ELIZA at <https://sites.google.com/view/elizaarchaeology/home>.
>
> In retrospect, moreover, I see that I may not have been as clear as to
> why I called attention to the possibility of running a version of ELIZA
> on the reconstructed ARPANET. I meant to highlight ELIZA as a test
> scenario for getting acquainted with the reconstructed ARPANET project
> was that interacting with the program gives a new user some experience
> with the, um, leisurely pace of the communication across the network,
> along with the (quickly irritating) sounds of the teletype at work, etc.
> I haven't spent enough time there to see how far / easy it might be to
> strike up a conversation with someone else online to go still further:
> so I thought this might be as good a place as any to start with.
>
> Clearly: this is the golden opportunity to start up the Association of
> ARPANET Researchers... ;-)
>
> In the meantime: I'm further grateful for these pointers as they
> prompted me to check further into a particular curiosity I've had for
> quite some time regarding the ELIZA / DOCTOR programs themselves.
> As a start, I'm not sure which version of the program is on offer at the
> elizaarcheology site.
> Not that it matters much to most of us - but as the terrific paper by
> Lane et al (including our colleague David M. Berry) explains,
> Weizenbaum's original 1963 version was written in MAD-LISP - whereas the
> version that became "the lingua franca of AI" was a clone written in
> 1966 by Bernie Cosell in LISP (Lane et al, 2025:
> <10.1109/MAHC.2025.3564095>)
>
> The latter version has also been available for some time for those of us
> lucky enough to have a PiDP-10 sitting on our desk - a Raspberry-Pi
> driven emulator / replica of the DEC PDP-10 that was used at MIT, among
> other places, in those days.
> This also appears to be the version available to the rest of us now via
> the ARPANET reconstruction project I mentioned:
> <https://obsolescence.dev/arpanet_home#>
> when following their first 2026 scenario:
> SCENARIO 1: MIT-AI DOCTOR === HOST #134
> Engaging the latter opens up the same ITS operating system at work in
> the PiDP-10 instantiation of ELIZA; both invoke LISP alone, etc.
>
> So I wonder if the version on elizaarcheology is the Cosell version
> rather than the more recently discovered (2025) and only very recently
> reconstructed (2026) Weizenbaum version in MAD-LISP?
> Perhaps Jacob Johanssen and/or David Berry will know off the tops of
> their very capacious heads?
>
> In any case, kudos to David Berry and his colleagues who further made
> the Weizenbaum MAD-LISP version available to anyone working in a
> UNIX-like environment:
> <https://github.com/rupertl/eliza-ctss?tab=readme-ov-file#readme>
> (Lane et al, 2025, p. 76)
>
> David was also interviewed on the reconstruction of this earliest
> version here:
> <https://www.livescience.com/technology/eliza-the-worlds-1st-chatbot-was-just-resurrected-from-60-year-old-computer-code?utm_term=8DDEC852-88AE-4919-AD0B-90BD6C9ADF42&lrh=3bdc5f1f89a97990a9d08608f0f21ea9c0780388e06c7978eb76754af35fa781&utm_campaign=368B3745-DDE0-4A69-A2E8-62503D85375D&utm_medium=email&utm_content=081CB850-2969-4326-93EB-7FF1B59A73E7&utm_source=SmartBrief>
>
> Again, many thanks all around - and happy hacking!
> - c.
>
>
> On 26/04/2026 15:33, Ulf-Dietrich Reips wrote:
>> Hello Charles, all:
>> thank you for the pointer to the wonderful ARPANET recreation project.
>>
>> The computer history musuem (https://computerhistory.org) used to have a
>> live demo of the original ELIZA, which for us in psychology and
>> psychotherapy research became very important in both showing how
>> simulation could inform us about effective ingredients of psychotherapy
>> and how computers could contribute to mental health. I visited the
>> museum first in Boston at its original location and some years ago also
>> in Mountain View.
>>
>> The museum provides both very insightful explanations AND the hands-on
>> experience needed to at least partly make young people understand what
>> it was like to experience software on pre-Internet computers and the
>> beginning Internet. The exhibition was very nicely done, I highly
>> recommend a visit.
>>
>> Best wishes from Europe,
>> ulf
>>
>> At 11:12 Uhr +0200 26.04.2026, Charles Melvin Ess via Air-L wrote:
>>> Hi AoIRists,
>>>
>>> As I mentioned in an earlier note to Morten Bay, there is an active
>>> project to recreate the ARPANET from ca. 1972. You can see the update
>>> here:
>>>
>>> <https://obsolescence.dev/arpanet_home>
>>>
>>> Including the chance to log in yourself to one of the now 35 working
>>> nodes.
>>>
>>> One of the documents referenced here is titled
>>>
>>> SCENARIOS for using the ARPANET at the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
>>> COMPUTER COMMUNICATION, Washington, D.C., October 24-26, 1972
>>>
>>> and is in fact reproduced in the pages giving further instructions on
>>> logging in - along with 2026 scenarios that might also be fun to play
>>> with.
>>>
>>> One of the available programs from the MIT.AI node is:
>>> ==
>>> DOCTOR is a LISP program written by Joseph Weizenbaum and described in
>>> "ELIZA - A Computer Program For the Study of Natural Language
>>> Communication Between Man And Machine" in the Communications of the
>>> ACM, January 1966.
>>> DOCTOR simulates a psychiatric interview with a Rogerian psychotherapist.
>>> ==
>>> (I'll come back to this below.)
>>>
>>> I know that ARPANET is central to the work of e.g.,Janet Abbate's
>>> early history, _Inventing the Internet_ (1999).
>>> But what I'm asking here, especially of historians who know these
>>> domains far better than I:
>>> 1) how far did these early exchanges, so far as they could be followed
>>> and/or documented - and/or, as at least some study of primary aims,
>>> practices, affordances, etc. might have been possible - enter into
>>> early research on CMC?
>>> 2) Might this reconstruction project, insofar as it grants access to
>>> "the rest of us," be of possible use / interest for historical /
>>> current research on CMC and its descendants?
>>> E.g., I know a great deal has been written about ELIZA - but, to my
>>> knowledge at least, not with direct access to the working program
>>> itself. I suspect the working program would give researchers a chance
>>> to not only become much more familiar with how the program works and
>>> "behaves," but also to try out hypotheses as to how different sorts of
>>> engagements, expectations, etc. might be dis/confirmed through
>>> actually using it?
>>>
>>> In any case, to quote the welcome message from the first terminal I
>>> tried: Happy Hacking!
>>>
>>> - charles
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
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