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Greenblatt Was Born
Greenblatt was born on December 25th, 1944 in Portland, Oregon -
Greenblatt Goes to College
In the fall of 1962, Richard Greenblatt enrolled in the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT). -
Tech Model Railroad Club
During his second term as an undergraduate student at MIT, Greenblatt found his was into the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club. -
PDP-1
During Greenblatts time at MIT he met a guy named Peter Samson. Peter and Greenblatt worked together to write a complier for the Model Railroad called Fortran. However, this Fortran complier ended up being used for a machine they call the PDP-1. -
PDP-6
A little while later, Richard Greenblatt kept working with compliers and ended up designing the newest PDP-6 computer. -
Greenblatt Fails out of MIT
Since Greenblatt spent so much time on these PDP machines he failed out of MIT his first term of his junior year. -
Charles Adam Associates
He took a job firm at the Charles Adams Associates. Greenblatt would work here during the day and then go back to MIT at night for some all-night hacking. -
Al Lab
Al lab hired Greenblatt about six months after he started working for Charles Adams Associates. At Al lab he proceeded to become a "hacker's hacker" as described in Steven Levy's book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution." At Al Lab he was also so into his hacking he wouldn't take regular showers and was known for having a very powerful odor. -
Macslip
Richard Greenblatt was the main developer of the Macslip on the PDP-6. The Macslip is a dialect of the Lisp programming language that originated in the late 1960’s. -
Incompatible Timesharing System
Richard Greenblatt, along with two other guys Tom Knight and Stewart Nelson, wrote the Incompatible Timesharing System. This was a highly influential timesharing operating system used for the PDP-6 and the PDP-10 at MIT. -
Mac Hack
Richard Greenblatt is very famous for his invention of Mac Hack. This was the first computer game to play tournament level chess and the first to compete in a human chess tournament. By the time Mac Hack was published it had already played in 18,000 tournaments and hundreds of games. -
Bobby Fischer
In 1977, the unbeaten chess champion Bobby Fischer played three games against Greenblatts Mac Hack and Fischer won them all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4DntQrrsHI -
Lisp Machine
Later on, Richard Greenblatt and Tom Knight were the main designers of the MIT Lisp Machine. Lisp Machines are computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their man software through hardware support. They are an example of very high level computer software. He then founded Lisp Machines Inc. to build up his invention of the Lisp Machine. -
Greenblatts Success
In 1984, Steven Levy’s book “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution” was published. Richard Greenblatts success and accomplishments were talked about throughout this book. Levy describes Richard as,” Single-minded, unkempt, prolific, and canonical MIT hacker who went into night phase so often that he zorched his academic career. The hacker’s ethic” (pg. xii). -
Richard Greenblatt Today
Richard Greenblatt is now 71 years old and is still talked about today. So many people look up to him for all of his amazing accomplishments and for being such an influential hacker in our world today. -
The Hacker Community
In the world today, Richard Greenblatt along with Bill Gosper are known to have founded the hacker community.
