LISP ACCELERATOR FOR NUMERIC AND SYMBOLIC PROCESSING

A HARDWARE LISP ACCELERATOR IS PROPOSED, FOR SOLVING THE REQUIREMENT TO DO BOTH NUMERIC AND SYMBOLIC PROCESSING IN THE SAME COMPUTER SYSTEM. THE NEED IS PARTICULARLY ACUTE WITH REAL TIME SYSTEMS, SUCH AS EXPERT SYSTEMS FOR PILOT AIDING, WHERE VAST AMOUNTS OF NUMERIC DATA MUST BE PROCESSED, WHILE MULTIPLE EXPERT SYSTEMS OPERATE SIMULTANEOUSLY IN REAL TIME. CONVENTIONAL NUMERIC COMPUTER SYSTEMS INCUR LARGE SOFTWARE OVERHEAD WHILE PROCESSING LISP PROGRAMS, AND ARE THUS VERY SLOW BY COMPARISON TO SPECIALIZED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) COMPUTERS KNOWN AS LISP MACHINES. CONVERSELY, LISP MACHINES ARE SEVERELY DEFICIENT WHEN APPLIED TO NUMERIC TASKS. NEITHER TYPE, THEREFORE, PERFORMS WELL IF REQUIRED TO HANDLE MULTIPLE EXPERT SYSTEMS IN REAL TIME. THE PROPOSED APPROACH IS TO DEVELOP A HARDWARE LISP ACCELERATOR - FUNCTIONALLY SIMILAR TO A NUMERIC CO-PROCESSOR IN A PC OR AN ARRAY PROCESSOR IN ASCIENTIFIC COMPUTER - ABLE TO OPERATE WITHIN THE ARCHITECTURE OF A CONVENTIONAL NUMERIC COMPUTER SYSTEM. MULTIPLE ACCELERATORS AS WELL AS HOST-CONFIGURABLE, SPECIAL-PURPOSE ACCELERATORS WILL BE EXPLORED. THE CONCEPTUAL DESIGN AND NECESSARY LICENSING ARE DONE. PHASE IWILL BE A DETAILED ANALYSIS AND SIMULATION OF THE PROPOSED DESIGN. PHASE II WILL RESULT IN A WORKING PROTOTYPE.