Editing Richard Greenblatt (programmer) (section)

==Career==
===Becoming a hacker===
Greenblatt enrolled in [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] in the fall of 1962, and around his second term as an undergraduate student, he found his way to MIT's famous [[Tech Model Railroad Club]].  At that time, [[Peter Samson]] had written a program in [[Fortran]] for the [[IBM 709]] series machines, to automate the tedious business of writing the intricate timetables for the Railroad Club's vast model train layout. Greenblatt felt compelled to implement a Fortran [[compiler]] for the [[PDP-1]], which then lacked one.  There was no computer time available to [[Debugging|debug]] the compiler, or even to type it into the computer.  Years later, elements of this compiler (combined with some ideas from fellow TMRC member Steven Piner, the author of a very early [[PDP-4]] Fortran compiler while working for [[Digital Equipment Corporation]]) were typed in and "showed signs of life".  However, the perceived need for a Fortran compiler had evaporated by then, so the compiler was not pursued further.  This and other experiences at TMRC, especially the influence of [[Alan Kotok]], who worked at DEC and was the junior partner of the design team for the [[PDP-6]] computer, led Greenblatt to  the [[MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory|AI Lab]], where he proceeded to become a "hacker's hacker" noted for his programming acumen as described in [[Steven Levy]]'s ''[[Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution]]'', and as acknowledged by [[Gerald Jay Sussman]] and [[Harold Abelson]] when they said they were fortunate to have been apprentice programmers at the feet of [[Bill Gosper]] and Richard Greenblatt.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-8.html#%_chap_Temp_5 |title=Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs |publisher=MIT Press}}</ref>

Indeed, he spent so much time programming the [[Programmed Data Processor]] (PDP) machines there that he failed out of MIT as a first-term junior and had to take a job at a firm, Charles Adams Associates, until the AI Lab hired him about 6 months later.

===Lisp Machines, Inc.===
In 1979, he and [[Tom Knight (scientist)|Tom Knight]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/full_record.php?iid=stl-431614f64ea3e |title=Richard Greenblatt and Thomas Knight with the CADR LISP Machine at MIT in 1978 |author=<!--Unstated--> |date=1978 |website=Computer History Museum |access-date=2018-11-16}}</ref> were the main designers of the MIT [[Lisp machine]]. He founded [[Lisp Machines]], Inc. (later renamed Gigamos Systems), according to his vision of an ideal hacker-friendly computer company, as opposed to the more commercial ideals of [[Symbolics]].