Time Sharing

From Lispy at the Lisp at 50 conference last week...

"Steele asked what's his one idea that could have had the most
practical impact if it had actually gotten implemented. McCarthy said,
if IBM had taken his ideas about time sharing… then things would have
been quite a bit better in the 1960's. At this point, JonL stood up
and started clapping."

http://lispy.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/lisp50-notes-part-iii-mccarthy-reaffirms-the-importance-of-having-access-to-the-abstract-syntax/

(I think we still may be paying for that gaff in many data centers.)