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In article <70755@ti-csl.csc.ti.com>, holland@m2.csc.ti.com (Fred Hollander) writes:
> 
> This is very interesting.  I don't have the strongest background in
> hardware architecture, but, could you please explain how a processor
> could be optimized for a specific high level language?

Certain high-level languages make certain assumptions about an underlying
machine, or more usually, an underlying "virtual" machine.  Most attempts
to optimize a processor to a specific language seem to focus at making
the processor instruction set the "virtual" machine instruction set.
Some examples (I may make mistakes so please correct any inaccurate info):

TI's LISP chip     which focuses on the tagged data values in LISP and
                   the use of CDR and CAR. (There are also competitors,
                   such as the MacIvory one, but I couldn't resist
                   mentioning TI.)
Lilith             Herr Docktor Professor N. Wirth's (inventor of Pascal, etc.)
                   Modula-based workstation.  The processor was aimed at
                   the Modula language.
SOAR               Smalltalk On A Risc -- one of many attempts to implement
                   Smalltalk byte-codes as a machine instruction set.
Forth chip         (From Novix?) A chip designed around the lanuage Forth
                   (which seems rather strange as I always thought Forth
                   was one of the few languages heavily optimized to the
                   traditional stack-based architecture).
Intel 80x86        I have read arguments stating that the Intel 
                   architecture was based around the concept of Pascal,
                   especially with the four segments: Data, Code, Stack
                   and Extra (personally, I think the Intel architecture is
                   a crime against humanity :-).


Other places to look would include the Warren Absract Machine for Prolog
(I'm sure someone is working on putting this on a chip) and in object-oriented
languages.

Sometimes, chip-makers go the opposite route and create a new language
optimized for the hardware, and Inmos did with Occam for their Transputer.

Anyway, I hope this sheds some light,
-Eric
         
                   
> 
> Fred Hollander
> Computer Science Center
> Texas Instruments, Inc.
> hollander@ti.com
> 
> The above statements are my own and not representative of Texas Instruments.


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