Here is an interesting talk at the ML Workshop http://www.mlworkshop.org/ml2015 at ICFP 2015:

David MacQueen The History of Standard ML: Ideas, Principles, Culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVEgyJCTee4

It briefly mentions the heroic efforts by David Matthews to make the first complete SML implementation, based on the existing Poly compiler.

Glad to see that this very first SML project still defines the cutting edge until today!

Makarius