Lisp lore : a guide to programming the Lisp machine (1986) by Hank Bromley.
From the introduction:
The full 11 -volume set of documentation that comes with a Symbolics lisp machine is understandably intimidating to the novice. “Where do I start?” is an oft-heard question, and one without a good answer. The eleven volumes provide an excellent reference medium, but are largely lacking in tutorial material suitable for a beginner. This book is intended to fill that gap. No claim is made for completeness of coverage — the eleven volumes fulfill that need. My goal is rather to present a readily grasped introduction to several representative areas of interest, including enough information to show how easy it is to build useful programs on the lisp machine. At the end of this course, the student should have a clear enough picture of what facilities exist on the machine to make effective use of the complete documentation, instead of being overwhelmed by it.
From the days when documentation was an expectation, not a luxury.
One starting place to decide if the ideas in a patent application are “new” or invented before a patent examiner went to college. 😉
Some other Lisp content you may find of interest:
- Archives from the Symbolics Lisp Users Group (SLUG) Mailing List, 1986-1993
- Archives from the Symbolics Lisp Users Group (SLUG) Mailing List, 1990-1999
- The Symbolics Museum Documentation but I didn’t see anything like an 11 volume manual. (Did I overlook it? Or is it elsewhere on the Net?)
I first saw this at Christophe Lalanne’s “A bag of tweets / January 2013.”