Re: Bootstrapping ANSI CL

On Jun 12, 11:49 am, JK <jk.use...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
+1. Forth is amazingly simple and elegant, although
its elegance lies along a different axis than Lisp's.
Building a working Forth VM by entering opcodes via
front-panel switches seems quite feasible. Getting
from there to an interactive Forth interpreter would
be somewhat more challenging :-)

That's an interesting idea - use Forth to get the maximum
functionality with the minimum work, and build Lisp from that :-).

I'm poking around, and while most of what I see is Forth for various
operating systems I'm seeing a few suggestions to the effect that only
a few dozen instructions in machine code may be needed to start
building up a Forth system:
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?design.4.357910.27

Does anybody know of a good forth implementation for machine
bootstrapping?

The next step would be implementing a basic Lisp in Forth (enough to
bootstrap ANSI). Does anyone know where either of these papers might
be had?

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=59413.59429
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=59413.59435

This might also be related (a thesis):
TLISP: A Small Lisp Interpreter Implemented in Forth Suryadevara,
Prasad Thomas Hand

I can't seem to find any references to even a way to order them, much
less find them online.

For more insanity, I wonder if one could design a motherboard that
used something like this http://www.ultratechnology.com/chips.htm to
provide the first Forth bootstrap environment directly in hardware
rather than as an implemention in another machine language.

Or, even beyond that, go straight to the source and have someone make
a tweaked version of the CADR hardware on a chip:

http://www.unlambda.com/cadr/index.html

Now THERE's a project idea - has anyone ever considered attempting to
implement an ANSI common lisp using the MIT CADR emulator as a
starting point? I suppose if you're down to this level, you might be
able to get to design your own hardware anyway, and if the target is
lisp you might as well make your hardware to support that direction.

That might be a way to create a real (or potentially real),
documented, "bootstrap from the metal" computer process that could
actually work, and could even be tested using the emulator (updated to
reflect any circuit modifications found to be necessary.) Then create
a book with all the hardware diagrams and describing how to physically
create the machine, and make that volume one of the manuals of the
system - "From Metal to Machine".

Neat - a project whose coolness is equaled only by its pointless
insanity :-).

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bootstrapping ANSI CL
    ... The next step would be implementing a basic Lisp in Forth (enough to ... provide the first Forth bootstrap environment directly in hardware ... Common Lisp (btw. for anyone who might be interested, ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: McCarthys original proposal for Lisp
    ... The whole point of a bootstrap ... procedure is to *avoid* having an actual circular definition. ... McCarthy's source code for defining a Lisp interpretor. ... S-expression source, and ideally also with LAP and SYSLISP to make ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: Why Lisp is not popular with average programmers
    ... > used to link directly to the hardware drivers by programs ... You can link Lisp programs to C and C++ programs, ... > Networking would have been nice for the standard to mention ... > machine code you can *make* your driver conform to that ABI ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: a dozen cpus on a chip
    ... No nontrivial language can ever be proven to be imposible to crash. ... compilers still available which implement ISO M2. ... It is a common misconception that Lisp is always interpretted. ... various X86 machines the hardware does exist that could allow the OS ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Reassessing the state of Lisp
    ... Sun Microsystems SUN-1 ran Macsyma also, probably within 6 months of the release of the SUN-1. ... came from non-Lisp hardware. ... To a significant extent the people who came from a special hardware background, especially from CMU and MIT, tried to marginalize, in the common lisp committee activity, those who of us at Berkeley who were using lisp on VAX and Sun-1. ... It was clear that one could support lisp users pretty well with Sun-1 workstations Not as well as on a lisp machine (at $100k each? ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)