SHRDLU, 1968-70:

The program could accept commands such as, "Move the blue block," and carry out the requested action using a simulated block-moving arm. The program could also respond verbally, for example, "I do not know which blue block you mean." | survival99

winograd wasn't the only one at the time who played around with natural language, q&a systems: there was paul weston at heinz von foersters bcl with hirwon, there was weizenbaum with eliza [My own program ELIZA represented, according to some authorities, a major step toward the fulfillment of man's ancient dream of automating psychotherapy,especially in state hospitals, acm forum, 1974], there was gordon park with his musi-colour” system, reacting with light, ... all worked a little bit, but not too much. later winograd agreed to be richard gabriel's adviser:

... Terry had been the wonderboy of the MIT AI Lab. At a time when AI was languishing and money for AI research was tight, MIT needed a charismatic figure. Terry was the answer. Handsome, well spoken, smooth and compelling as a speaker—Terry wrote the famous SHRDLU program, a natural-language understanding system hooked up to a simulated robot that would move cubes, pyramids, and spheres of various color around according to written questions and commands. They made a film of it and it is sometimes still shown on PBS. After MIT, Terry became a scholar more than a researcher, though he still did some research, it never amounted to as much as SHRDLU had. | richard gabriel, Patterns of Software Tales from the Software Community, 1996

Hehehe. AI, der große Traum.