Pre-Scheme is a statically typed dialect of Scheme which offers the efficiency and low-level machine access of C while retaining many of the desirable features of Scheme. Developed by Richard Kelsey in the late '80s based on the powerful "Transformational Compiler" from his dissertation, it didn't see much use beyond the Scheme 48 virtual machine. With a renewed community interest in systems-level Scheme programming thanks to the growth of the Guix project, it's high time we revisit this corner of history.

In this talk we will: - review the history of Pre-Scheme - review its compiler implementation and related work - discuss the features & limitations of Pre-Scheme - discuss porting efforts & future work