[comp.lang.smalltalk] What should be in hardware but isn't

franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (10/02/87)

In article <2913@husc6.UUCP> reiter@harvard.UUCP (Ehud Reiter) writes:
|The special hardware that LISP machines tend to have are:
|
|   1) Tagged data.  The tags give data type.  A word in memory might, for
|example, consist of 32 data bits and a 4 bit type field.
|
|   2) Memory management.  Support for CONS and for garbage collection.
|
|   3) Special caches, instruction sets, etc., which are geared towards LISP.
|
|[This list is by no means exhaustive]

This looks like much the same sort of stuff that one would want for
Smalltalk.  Has anyone looked at implementing Smalltalk on Lisp machines?

(Of course, if Lisp machines really *don't* give better Lisp performance for
the price than conventional architectures, it is unlikely that they would do
better for Smalltalk.)
-- 

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
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