Russell Noftsker is an American entrepreneur who notably founded Symbolics, and was its first chairman and president.
Biography
Steven Levy described Noftsker as "A compactly built blond with pursed features and blue eyes". Noftsker[1] earned a degree in engineering from the University of Mexico [1], and was hired in 1965 by Marvin Minsky to replace MIT's administrator of the AI Lab, Dan Edwards, who had recently left that post. He would later hire Richard Stallman as a systems programmer for the lab.
- ^ actually New Mexico State University BSEE 1964
Lisp machines and Symbolics
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Main article: Lisp machine
He left the Lab in 1973 "under duress" (according to Levy), but would later return to the Lab, having followed Richard Greenblatt's development of the early Lisp machine; he proposed that the two of them commercialize the technology. Greenblatt initially accepted, but differences over business strategy and direction split the two apart February 1979, each forming their own company- Noftsker would with Robert Adams and with a number of AI Lab hackers form Symbolics, making himself its president and chairman; Greenblatt would eventually start Lisp Machines Inc.
Nofstker would be forced out of Symbolics completely by the board in 1988 after an internal battle with the then CEO; he had already been forced to resign his presidency April 1984 by the board, retaining his chairmanship.
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