Fast Arithmetic in MACLISP

Abstract

MacLISP provides a compiler which produces numerical code competitive in speed with some FORTRAN implementations and yet compatible with the rest of the MacLISP system. All numerical programs can be run under MacLISP interpreter. Additional declarations to the compiler specify type information which allows the generation of optimized numerical code which generally does not require the garbage collection of temporary numerical results. Array accesses are almost as fast as in FORTRAN, and permit the use of dynamically allocated arrays of varying dimensions. Here we discuss the implementation decisions regarding user interface, data representations, and interfacing conventions which allow the generation of fast numerical LISP code.