This repo is an implementation of Steele and Sussman's prototype lisp processor presented in "AI Memo No. 514, Design of LISP-Based Processors".
- repo copy
- MIT copy
- readscheme copy
- ipfs QmfWwQpJTrGhKKB2JShQFnNK1KAPUTurqJtRZkQA7sxUdG
The idea that Steele and Sussman come to is that, since you can write a metacircular interpreter for LISP or at least some interesting mutable dialect of scheme you can conceive of a machine as either a physical machine or as the software virtual machine interpreting LISP code and discover that in terms at least of operational semantics it doesn't matter whether a LISP program is compiled, interpreted in hardware, interpreted in software or something else.
The design which Steele invented and presents here is for a two part or perhaps even two core chip. The two presented logical components are the ALU, Pg. 15 (which in AIM-514 doesn't do much) and a separate memory controller ("storage controller", Pg. 18). The ALU exists to deal with interpreting LISP opcodes, whereas the memory controller