It's interesting. Primary source documents from the 1980s really talk about it as a debacle between Symbolics and Lisp Machines Inc, Stallman being caught in th

It's interesting. Primary source documents from the 1980s really talk about it as a debacle between Symbolics and Lisp Machines Inc, Stallman being caught in the middle and then deciding they were both bad. While on the other hand, contemporary accounts date it to a Xerox 9700 printer at MIT in 1980. I don't know. You could say in the 1980s the printer story sounded too absurd so they emphasized the clash of Titans aspect or you could say that we really like provincial origin stories these days so this "a simple motivated man with a great idea" framework is more appealing This kind of stuff is fascinating; how history is narrated differently throughout time For people uninitiated, the idea is materially, only discrete events happen. Stories are the narrative sense making humans project on them.