The Howdy Glossary

Maclisp is an extension of Lisp developed for the implementation of the Macsyma symbolic mathematics software on early 1970s computer systems, particularly those at MIT. Maclisp had several features that made it well-suited for its purpose, including the capability to handle large lists and nested structures typical in symbolic mathematics. It included garbage collection with a stop-and-copy algorithm to manage memory and was designed to support a high-level mathematical syntax. The language's legacy can be seen in some aspects of Common Lisp, which drew from Maclisp in its development processes.