The ELIS interpreter-oriented Lisp-based workstation

A workstation has been developed using a single semi-custom VLSI chip, which is capable of running a fast Lisp-based language. It has an interpreter-oriented architecture based on the concept that similar logic functions, essential to list processing, can be realized by multiple implementation of a single logic circuit leading to a simplified datapath structure. The workstation exhibits an interpretation speed generally comparable to that of compiled code execution on a DEC-2060. The keys to achieving such high performance with small-sized hardware are a fully microcoded interpreter, implementation of a large hardware stack for variable binding, and multiple purpose registers designed to facilitate memory-access-intensive operations and byte manipulation. The language (TAO) on the workstation is a dialect of Lisp. TAO incorporates an object-oriented language and a logic programming language. The execution speed of either of the latter two types of languages is one-half that of Lisp. TAO supports multiple user operations and multiple process execution