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Compiling Smalltalk-80 to a RISC

Authors:

William R. Bush,

A. Dain Samples,

David Ungar,

Paul N. HilfingerAuthors Info & Claims

ASPLOS II: Proceedings of the second international conference on Architectual support for programming languages and operating systems

Pages 112 - 116

https://doi.org/10.1145/36206.36192

Published: 01 October 1987 Publication History

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Abstract

The Smalltalk On A RISC project at U. C. Berkeley proves that a high-level object-oriented language can attain high performance on a modified reduced instruction set architecture. The single most important optimization is the removal of a layer of interpretation, compiling the bytecoded virtual machine instructions into low-level, register-based, hardware instructions. This paper describes the compiler and how it was affected by SOAR architectural features. The compiler generates code of reasonable density and speed. Because of Smalltalk-80's semantics, relatively few optimizations are possible, but hardware and software mechanisms at runtime offset these limitations. Register allocation for an architecture with register windows comprises the major task of the compiler. Performance analysis suggests that SOAR is not simple enough; several hardware features could be efficiently replaced by instruction sequences constructed by the compiler.

References

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'SOAR: Smalltalk Without Bytecodes'; A. Dain Samples, David Ungar, Paul Hilfinger; CACM Object-Oriented Programming Systems, Languages and Applications Proceedings, November 1986, pp 107--118.

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'Smalltalk-80 to SOAR Code'; William R. Bush; U. C. Berkeley Computer Science Division Report UCB/CSD 86/297, June 1986.

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'Register Windows for SOAR'; John Blakken; Smalltalk On A RISC -- Proceedings of CS929R, April 1983, pp 126--140.

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Cited By

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Ponder CBush B(1994)Polymorphism considered harmfulACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes10.1145/181628.18163519:2(35-37)Online publication date: 1-Apr-1994
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/181628.181635
Ponder CBush B(1992)Polymorphism considered harmfulACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/130981.13099127:6(76-79)Online publication date: 1-Jun-1992
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/130981.130991
Baker H(1991)CLOStrophobia: its etiology and treatmentACM SIGPLAN OOPS Messenger10.1145/126983.1269842:4(4-15)Online publication date: 1-Oct-1991
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/126983.126984
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Compiling Smalltalk-80 to a RISC
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Architectures
    1. Serial architectures
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language types

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Compiling Smalltalk-80 to a RISC

The Smalltalk On A RISC project at U. C. Berkeley proves that a high-level object-oriented language can attain high performance on a modified reduced instruction set architecture. The single most important optimization is the removal of a layer of ...
Compiling Smalltalk-80 to a RISC

The Smalltalk On A RISC project at U. C. Berkeley proves that a high-level object-oriented language can attain high performance on a modified reduced instruction set architecture. The single most important optimization is the removal of a layer of ...
Compiling Smalltalk-80 to a RISC

The Smalltalk On A RISC project at U. C. Berkeley proves that a high-level object-oriented language can attain high performance on a modified reduced instruction set architecture. The single most important optimization is the removal of a layer of ...

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Information

Published In

ASPLOS II: Proceedings of the second international conference on Architectual support for programming languages and operating systems

October 1987

205 pages

ISBN:0818608056

DOI:10.1145/36206

Editor:
Randy Katz
Univ. of California, Berkeley
,
General Chair:
Martin Freeman
Stanford University and Philips/Signetics

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News Volume 15, Issue 5
Oct. 1987
189 pages
ISSN:0163-5964
DOI:10.1145/36177
Editor:
Randy H. Katz
Univ. of California, Berkeley
Issue’s Table of Contents
ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 22, Issue 10
Oct. 1987
189 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/36205
Editor:
Randy Katz
Univ. of California, Berkeley
Issue’s Table of Contents
ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review Volume 21, Issue 4
Oct. 1987
189 pages
ISSN:0163-5980
DOI:10.1145/36204
Editor:
Randy Katz
Univ. of California, Berkeley
Issue’s Table of Contents

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 1987

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ASPLOS II

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SIGARCH

ASPLOS II: Architectual support for programming languages and operating systems

October 5 - 8, 1987

California, Palo Alto, USA

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Cited By

View all

Ponder CBush B(1994)Polymorphism considered harmfulACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes10.1145/181628.18163519:2(35-37)Online publication date: 1-Apr-1994
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/181628.181635
Ponder CBush B(1992)Polymorphism considered harmfulACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/130981.13099127:6(76-79)Online publication date: 1-Jun-1992
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/130981.130991
Baker H(1991)CLOStrophobia: its etiology and treatmentACM SIGPLAN OOPS Messenger10.1145/126983.1269842:4(4-15)Online publication date: 1-Oct-1991
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/126983.126984
Krishnaswamy VAhuja SCarriero NGelernter DSiegel H(1988)The architecture of a Linda coprocessorProceedings of the 15th Annual International Symposium on Computer architecture10.5555/52400.52428(240-249)Online publication date: 1-Jun-1988
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/52400.52428
Krishnaswamy VAhuja SCarriero NGelernter D(1988)The architecture of a Linda coprocessorACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/633625.5242816:2(240-249)Online publication date: 17-May-1988
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/633625.52428
Ungar DSmith RRyder BHailpern B(2007)SelfProceedings of the third ACM SIGPLAN conference on History of programming languages10.1145/1238844.1238853(9-1-9-50)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1238844.1238853
Ahuja SCarriero NGelernter DKrishnaswamy V(1988)Matching Language and Hardware for Parallel Computation in the Linda MachineIEEE Transactions on Computers10.1109/12.224437:8(921-929)Online publication date: 1-Aug-1988
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/12.2244

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