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The microarchitecture really implemented Lisp primitives like cons, car, cdr, array ref as opcodes, etc. That's about as close to executing Lisp directly as you can get.


That's how it's commonly explained, but it's not really correct. The bitsavers.org folks have a copy of the original Lisp Machine paper:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/mit/cons/TheLispMachine_Nov74.p...

The pointer/register format was very LISP-friendly, but the actual instructions are much more conventional. The trick is that instead of having to test the tag bits with separate instructions, the "load" instruction equivalent does it in hardware.


Well, if you look on pages 13-14 of the manual you referenced, you'll find instruction codes for PCAR, PCDR, SCDR, SCDDR, NCONS, CONS, LIST (alloc), CxxxR, CxxxXR, GET, GETL, ASSQ, ASSOC, etc. Seems like Lisp primitive instructions to me.


Keep in mind that "car" and "cdr" were opcodes stolen from processors that existed way before lisp machine :)




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