OCaml machine (was: Re: speed versus C)

From: Juergen Pfitzenmaier (pfitzen@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de)
Date: Wed Oct 13 1999 - 15:44:56 MET DST


Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 15:44:56 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Juergen Pfitzenmaier <pfitzen@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>
Message-Id: <199910131344.PAA15975@sunstroke.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>
To: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: OCaml machine (was: Re: speed versus C)

Alain Frisch wrote:
> Do you think it would be easy to design processors with built-in support
> for boxed values, GC tags, OO, etc ... that is, a concrete OCaml machine ?

Hey that's exactly what I was talking about with some friends a week ago.
One evening we were sitting over some coffe and beer and talking what we
would like to do in the near future and how to make a living of it.
One idea that came up was the design of ML in hardware just like the
long gone Lisp machines. Our idea was to build it because it would mean
some value to the collector/FP programmer/freak and not because of
some imagined gain in execution speed. And the first reason is: I would
like to have a ML machine sitting on my desk (others collect tea spoons,
stamps ... I collect hardware).

At this time that idea is not considered seriously but next year my company
might have some extra money that we could spend in some VHDL design just
for fun and there a some cool people around who are willing to join in.

ciao pfitzen



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