ByteLisp and its Alto implementation

ABSTRACT

This paper describes in detail the most interesting aspects of ByteLisp, a transportable Lisp system architecture which implements the Interlisp dialect of Lisp, and its first implementation, on a microprogrammed minicomputer called the Alto. Two forthcoming related papers will deal with general questions of Lisp machine and system architecture, and detailed measurements of the Alto ByteLisp system described here. A highly condensed summary of the series was published at MICRO-11 in November 197815.

REFERENCES

• 1: Teitelman, W. Interlisp Reference Manual. Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 1974.
• 2: Moore, J S. The Interlisp Virtual Machine Specification. Xerox Palo Alto Research Center report # CSL-76-5, 1976.
• 3: Goldberg, A., et al. Smalltalk: Dreams and Schemes. (book in preparation at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.)
• 4: Henry G. Baker, Jr., Shallow binding in Lisp 1.5, Communications of the ACM, v.21 n.7, p.565-569, July 1978 [doi>10.1145/359545.359566]
• 5: Greenblatt, R. Lisp Machine Progress Report. Memo 444, A.I. Lab., M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 1977.
• 6: L. Peter Deutsch , Daniel G. Bobrow, An efficient, incremental, automatic garbage collector, Communications of the ACM, v.19 n.9, p.522-526, Sept. 1976 [doi>10.1145/360336.360345]
• 7: Henry G. Baker, Jr., List processing in real time on a serial computer, Communications of the ACM, v.21 n.4, p.280-294, April 1978 [doi>10.1145/359460.359470]
• 8: Douglas Wells Clark, List structure: measurements, algorithms, and encodings., 1976
• 9: Douglas W. Clark , C. Cordell Green, An empirical study of list structure in Lisp, Communications of the ACM, v.20 n.2, p.78-87, Feb. 1977 [doi>10.1145/359423.359427]
• 10: Bobrow, D. G. and Clark, D. W. Compact encodings of list structure. Xerox Palo Alto Research Center report # CSL-79-7, 1979.
• 11: Deutsch, L. Peter. A Lisp Machine with Very Compact Programs. Proceedings of 3rd IJCAI, Stanford, Ca., Aug. 1973.
• 12: Iliffe, J. K. Basic language machines. Elsevier Press.
• 13: Daniel G. Bobrow , Ben Wegbreit, A model and stack implementation of multiple environments, Communications of the ACM, v.16 n.10, p.591-603, Oct. 1973 [doi>10.1145/362375.362379]
• 14: Rice, et al. The Symbol machine.
• 15: L. Peter Deutsch, Experience with a microprogrammed Interlisp system, Proceedings of the 11th annual workshop on Microprogramming, p.128-129, November 19-22, 1978, Pacific Grove, California, United States
• 16: Thacker, C. P., et al. Alto, a Personal Computer. Xerox Palo Alto Research Center report # CSL-79-11, 1979.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications

          Nouns: LISP

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.0 GENERAL
      Subjects: System architectures

  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.4 Processors
          Subjects: Memory management (garbage collection)

  E. Data
  E.1 DATA STRUCTURES
      Subjects: Lists, stacks, and queues

General Terms:
Design, Languages, Management