Getting Interlisp-D running with Medley on Debian 3.1

medley.md

Install VirtualBox (eg on Mac: brew cask install virtualbox)

Download Debian 3.1 from here: https://virtualboxes.org/images/debian/

Create a new VM in VirtualBox and select the vdi file from the above archive as a disk. Check the VM settings:

• Make sure the disk is mounted as an IDE device, SATA errors out on boot (in the Storage tab)
• Also, make sure the pointing device is set to PS/2 Mouse (in the General tab)

Start the VM. Log in as root/toor.

X11 needs to be installed. Edit the sources-list (/etc/apt/sources.list) with eg nano by commenting out everything and adding: deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ sarge contrib main non-free

To install X11, execute:

apt-get update

apt-get install x-window-system

Configure X11:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

Most important step here is to set the mouse as a PS/2 device, else X won't boot. I also chose a relatively low video resolution, eg 800x600, 60 Hz/16 bit, don't know if it's necessary.

To download the LFG software:

wget ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/lfg/lfg.sysout

wget ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/lfg/linux/intel/lde (not sure if necessary)

wget ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/lfg/linux/intel/ldex

chmod +x lde

chmod +x ldex

Run X:

startx

Now click anywhere and select Debian -> XShells -> XTerm

Now run ./ldex lfg.sysout.

This should start up Medley. After a while, a kind of REPL will show up.

Thanks! I had a problem with the mouse and discovered that the device is /dev/psaux

You can find the source files on the way back machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20170706013703/ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/lfg/lfg.sysout for example

@mtbikes Not all of the files are available in that manner.

Instead, you can get all of the files from here: https://archive.org/details/2014.01.ftp.parc.xerox.com