| You might be interested in reading about the Japanese "Fifth Generation Computer Systems" project from 1982, which revolved around PROLOG. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Generation_Computer_Syst... >The Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS; Japanese: 第五世代コンピュータ, romanized: daigosedai konpyūta) was a 10-year initiative begun in 1982 by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) to create computers using massively parallel computing and logic programming. It aimed to create an "epoch-making computer" with supercomputer-like performance and to provide a platform for future developments in artificial intelligence. FGCS was ahead of its time, and its excessive ambitions led to commercial failure. However, on a theoretical level, the project spurred the development of concurrent logic programming. >The term "fifth generation" was intended to convey the system as being advanced. In the history of computing hardware, there were four "generations" of computers. Computers using vacuum tubes were called the first generation; transistors and diodes, the second; integrated circuits, the third; and those using microprocessors, the fourth. Whereas previous computer generations had focused on increasing the number of logic elements in a single CPU, the fifth generation, it was widely believed at the time, would instead turn to massive numbers of CPUs to gain performance. [...] >Concurrent logic programming >In 1982, during a visit to the ICOT, Ehud Shapiro invented Concurrent Prolog, a novel programming language that integrated logic programming and concurrent programming. Concurrent Prolog is a process oriented language, which embodies dataflow synchronization and guarded-command indeterminacy as its basic control mechanisms. Shapiro described the language in a Report marked as ICOT Technical Report 003,[7] which presented a Concurrent Prolog interpreter written in Prolog. Shapiro's work on Concurrent Prolog inspired a change in the direction of the FGCS from focusing on parallel implementation of Prolog to the focus on concurrent logic programming as the software foundation for the project.[3] It also inspired the concurrent logic programming language Guarded Horn Clauses (GHC) by Ueda, which was the basis of KL1, the programming language that was finally designed and implemented by the FGCS project as its core programming language. >The FGCS project and its findings contributed greatly to the development of the concurrent logic programming field. The project produced a new generation of promising Japanese researchers. https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/5thgen.htm >The Japanese Fifth Generation project was a collaborative effort of the Japanese computer industry coordinated by the Japanese Government that intended not only to update the hardware technology of computers but alleviate the problems of programming by creating AI operating systems that would ferret out what the user wanted and then do it. The Project chose to use PROLOG as the computer language for the AI programming instead of the LISP-based programming of the American AI researchers. The Japanese National Fifth Generation Project: Introduction, survey, and evaluation: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:kv359wz9060/kv359wz90... >Abstract: Projecting a great vision of intelligent systems in the service of the economy and society, the Japanese government in 1982 launched the national Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) project. The project was carried out by a central research institute, ICOT, with personnel from its member-owners, the Japanese computer manufacturers (JCMs) and other electronics industry firms. The project was planned for ten years, but continues through year eleven and beyond. ICOT chose to focus its efforts on language issues and programming methods for logic programming, supported by special hardware. Sequential 'inference machines' (PSI) and parallel 'inference machines' (PIM) were built. Performances of the hardware-software hybrid was measured in the range planned (150 million logical inferences per second). An excellent system for logic programming on parallel machines was constructed (XLI). However, applicationswere done in demonstration form only (not deployed). The lack of a stream of applications that computer customers found effective and the sole use of a language outside the mainstream, Prolog, led to disenchantment among the JCMs. Japan's Fifth Generation Computer Systems: Success or Failure? https://www.reddit.com/r/prolog/comments/owb0xg/japans_fifth... https://instadeq.com/blog/posts/japans-fifth-generation-comp... >This post is a summary of content from papers covering the topic, it's mostly quotes from the papers from 1983, 1993 and 1997 with some edition, references to the present and future depend on the paper but should be easy to deduce. See the Sources section at the end. [...] >Prolog vs LISP >Achieving such revolutionary goals would seem to require revolutionary techniques. Conventional programming languages, particularly those common in the late 1970s and early 1980s offered little leverage. >The requirements clearly suggested the use of a rich, symbolic programming language capable of supporting a broad spectrum of programming styles. >Two candidates existed: LISP which was the mainstream language of the US Artificial Intelligence community and Prolog which had a dedicated following in Europe. >LISP had been used extensively as a systems programming language and had a tradition of carrying with it a featureful programming environment; it also had already become a large and somewhat messy system. Prolog, in contrast, was small and clean, but lacked any experience as an implementation language for operating systems or programming environments. [...] >Fun Trivia >The one commercial use we saw of the PSI machines was at Japan Air Lines, where the PSI-II machines were employed; ironically, they were remicrocoded as Lisp Machines. |
http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/fleng/fleng.ht...