Re: Bognumosity

[Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@ALDERAAN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: Thu, 16 Apr 87 13:14:13 MDT
    From: shebs%orion@cs.utah.edu (Stanley T. Shebs)

				  There wouldn't be any need for a CONS-LIMIT,
    because individual conses are always the same size,

But what if I wanted to write a program for, as you say, an embedded
system, and I needed to know exactly how many cons cells I can create
and be quite certain that I won't run out of memory?  Conversely, if I
know what the bignum limit is, and I stay within that limit, but make
zillions of such legal bignums, then I might run out of virtual memory. 
So whether the individual object is of fixed size or of variable size
doesn't really matter, for the purposes you're referring to.