ACM Home Page
Please provide us with feedback. Feedback
A LISP machine
Full text PdfPdf (140 KB)
Source Computer Architecture Workshop archive
Proceedings of the fifth workshop on Computer architecture for non-numeric processing table of contents
Pacific Grove, California, United States
Pages: 137 - 138  
Year of Publication: 1980
Also published in ...
Authors
Sponsors
SIGARCH: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture
SIGMOD: ACM Special Interest Group on Management of Data
SIGIR: ACM Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval
Publisher
ACM  New York, NY, USA
Bibliometrics
Downloads (6 Weeks): 2,   Downloads (12 Months): 20,   Citation Count: 2
Additional Information:

abstract   cited by   index terms   collaborative colleagues  

Tools and Actions: Request Permissions Request Permissions    Review this Article  
DOI Bookmark: Use this link to bookmark this Article: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/800083.802703
What is a DOI?

ABSTRACT

LISP is the second oldest computer-programming language still in active use. Our implementation is based on a powerful microprogrammed processor designed specifically for LISP. This processor supports a tagged macro-architecture; it manipulates items which have a built-in data-type field. The system supports several important new storage-management features, including a real-time garbage collector with hardware assist (using the basic algorithm of Baker). The software itself is written in LISP to a much larger extent than in previous systems. In fact, there are only two levels in which code is written: LISP and microcode. Among other things this improves the consistancy of system interfaces. The system design incorporates the personal computer philosophy. We believe the personal computer will predominate in the future since it is preferable to time-sharing in most cases and technological trends are greatly reducing its cost penality. In the case of very large programs, the personal computer can be cost-effective today, due to the phenomenon of thrashing encountered in time-sharing systems.



Collaborative Colleagues:
Richard D. Greenblatt: colleagues
Thomas F. Knight: colleagues
John T. Holloway: colleagues
David A. Moon: colleagues